Dad gets six years for attempted arson murder of ex, two children (Newmarket, Suffolk, England, United Kingdom)

Notice the misleading headline. This wasn't some random jealous "man" who started this fire. Dad DANIEL COE was also targeting his two children in this attempted arson murder. But you have to search for that fact.

http://www.newmarketjournal.co.uk/news/man_jailed_for_revenge_arson_1_2712799

Man jailed for ‘revenge’ arson

Published on Monday 30 May 2011 06:00

A PATHOLOGICALLY jealous man who started a fire at his former partner’s Newmarket home while she and their two young children were asleep inside, has been jailed for six years.

Thirty-one-year-old Daniel Coe had stalked and intimidated Alison Wakeling after their relationship ended and she got a new boyfriend.

Then, in the early hours of September 12 last year, he went to the rented house in Brickfields Avenue on Newmarket’s Studlands Park estate where 39-year-old Ms Wakeling was living, poured petrol through the letter box and set fire to it.

Ipswich Crown Court heard that the fire alarms were not working in the house where Coe had been the day before and cut the telephone wires, an action which Judge Rupert Overbury called “particularly sinister”.

The alarm was raised by Ms Wakeling’s 18-year-old daughter, Amy, who was woken by the pungent smell of burning plastic. She woke her mother who fled with her two-year-old daughter, John Farmer prosecuting told the court.

Ms Wakeling then went back into the smoke-filled house to rescue another daughter, aged nine.

Jailing Coe, Judge Overbury described what he had done as “premeditated revenge”.

He said his motive for starting the fire was to punish Ms Wakeling for embarking on a new relationship. “You were dangerously jealous to the extent that you were prepared to risk the lives of those who were once nearest and dearest to you,” he said and added it was fortunate the fire was discovered soon after being started as it could have spread along an entire terrace of houses putting other residents’ lives at risk.

Coe, of no fixed address, pleaded guilty to arson being reckless as to whether life was endangered and also causing criminal damage to the phone line.

Outlining the background to the case Mr Farmer said Coe’s relationship with Ms Wakeling had begun in 1999 and they had two children together.

They separated in August last year but Coe had shown signs of “pathological jealousy” when he discovered Ms Wakeling had a new boyfriend.

On the night of the fire he had stayed at the Rutland Arms Hotel in Newmarket. Affer leaving at 4am on September 12 he went to a petrol station where he bought the petrol he used to start the fire.

He said that Ms Wakeling, Amy and the two children were taken to hospital but were not seriously injured. The damage to the house was put at £22,000.

For Coe, Joanne Eley said: “He apologises for the trauma and the suffering caused to his family. He knows the terrible consequences that could have happened if they hadn’t got out of the house.”