AN ARSONIST who set fire to a room in a Cowley Road B&B last November made nuisance 999 calls a year earlier - claiming he’d set fire to a house and shot his family dead.
Robert Steele, 24, torched the upstairs room in the building on the corner of Southfield Road and Cowley Road on November 1 last year – prompting a large fire service response.
Oxfordshire fire service received a number of 999 calls about the blaze at around 9.30am.
At the time, watch manager Dan Shepherd said: “The fire damage sustained was limited to the one bedroom and thankfully all persons were accounted for after a full search of the building.”
The Oxford blaze came almost a year after he made nuisance 999 calls to the ambulance service and the fire brigade claiming to have shot his family dead and set fire to their house in Great Western Drive, Didcot.
After doctors deemed him fit to enter pleas, Steele, formerly of St Andrews Road, Birmingham, appeared before Oxford Crown Court on Wednesday morning and pleaded guilty to racially-aggravated arson being reckless as to whether lives were endangered.
Judge Ian Pringle QC remanded him in custody and ordered pre-sentence reports, adjourning the case for sentence on April 28.
Prosecutor Rebecca Foulkes suggested that the probation service could look specifically at whether the defendant was dangerous and should be given an extended prison sentence.
Sending him down to the cells, Judge Pringle told olive-shirted Steele: “I’m going to adjourn your case for sentence. The sentence will take place at this court on Thursday, April 28, in the meantime you must remain in custody.”
A day before, on Tuesday, he pleaded guilty at Oxford Magistrates’ Court to harassment and malicious communications.
He called a relative in Didcot in February and March 2021, telling her – amongst other things – that ‘my dad is coming out of prison next month and he is going to come and kill you’.
In a Facebook comment, he said the woman ‘will be dead on Friday’ having earlier said ‘I can’t wait til Friday’.
On October 25 and into October 26, 2020, he made 999 calls to the ambulance and fire services. He falsely claimed to have shot and killed his family, including a number of children, at a property in Great Western Drive, Didcot. In another emergency call he said he’d set fire to the house, resulting in firefighters being sent to the street.
The following year, on March 27, he sent a message to a woman threatening to shoot a police officer.
The Oxford magistrates ordered probation reports and sent the case to the crown court for sentence on April 12.
However, Judge Pringle told the barristers at Oxford Crown Court on Wednesday that the two sets of matters would be sentenced together later next month.
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