Psychotic detained over Pewsey house arson

12:16pm Wednesday 14th May 2008

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A psychotic schizophrenic who set light to the family home while his parents slept is to be detained in hospital.

Lawrie Osbourne will also be subject to a restriction order meaning he cannot be released until he is deemed safe and may then be under conditions when he is freed.

The 27-year-old started a blaze in the middle of the night which destroyed the family's timber framed bungalow at Littleworth, near Pewsey.

But after hearing about his mental health problems a judge decided not to pass a jail term but to sentence him to a hospital order with a restriction order.

Dr Paul Cantrell, a consultant forensic psychiatrist, told Swindon crown court in his view Osbourne suffered from psychotic illness with schizophrenia.

He said the patient had refused to talk to him about the offence until recently when he revealed why he had done it.

"He has told me part of the reasoning for the setting of the fire was in order to try and terminate the magic that had been carried out on him," he told the court.

"The offence was very clearly linked with his mental illness rather than the mental illness developed after."

Dr Cantrell said in his view Osbourne would be greatly helped by a hospital order with a restriction order.

He said on average patients spend just under four years detained under the orders and then eight and a half years during which they can be recalled.

Passing a hospital order and restriction order without limit Judge Douglas Field said "You were convicted of a very serious offence of arson being reckless as to whether or not life would be endangered.

"The premises was your parent's home of long standing. They were in bed at the time. It was of great fortune that they managed to get out of the property in time without serious injury."

Osbourne, who in the past has twice been sectioned under the Mental Health Act, started the blaze in October last year.

His parents Graham and Jennifer were asleep when they were woken by their bedroom door opening at about 5am and their son standing there.

He quickly shut the door and they went back to sleep but shortly after they were woken by the sounds and smell of the fire.

As they fled the house, Graham naked and Jennifer in a nightdress, they were confronted by Lawrie standing calmly outside.

Seeing the flames ripping through the bungalow his mum asked him if he had called the fire brigade to which he replied No, should I?' before dialling 999 on his mobile.

A jury at Swindon crown court was told how Lawrie, one of the couple's two sons, had a history of mental health problems.

He had been sectioned under the Mental Health Act twice before and his family told how he had been acting strangely in the run up to the fire.

Osbourne, of The Cedars, Littleworth, denied starting the fire and stood trial charged with arson with intent to endanger life and arson being reckless as to whether life was endangered. A jury convicted him of the lesser of the charges.

He claimed some people from Pewsey who had it in for him had been breaking into the house and moving things about.

Osbourne has been detained at the Fromeside Clinic, a medium secure hospital near Bristol, for much of the time since the fire.