Man gets life for plotting arson

Aug 31 2007 by Deborah James, Liverpool Daily Post

A MAN who plotted to set his ex-girlfriend’s house alight has been jailed for life.

Vicky Grace was trapped in her Kirkby home with her three-year-old child when it was targeted by an arsonist, Liverpool Crown Court heard.

The blaze, which started on the evening of October 9, had been planned and ordered by Miss Grace’s ex-boyfriend 22-year-old Marc Stephens.

Simon Christie, prosecuting, said paper was pushed through the letterbox and the fire accelerated with petrol.

Stephens, of no fixed address, admitted con- spiracy to commit arson and said he asked another man to burn Miss Grace’s door down, after drinking and taking drugs.

Philip Hall, defending, said: “He knows what he did was unjustified.”

Sentencing Stephens, Judge Ian Trigger told him: “I’d be failing in my public duty unless I were to do anything than impose a sentence of life imprisonment.”