The Court of Appeal has upheld an eight-and-a-half-year prison sentence imposed on Jason Hughes for setting fire to his estranged father’s apartment in Clondalkin while three people, including a four-year-old child, were inside.
Hughes pleaded guilty to arson arising from the fire before 6am on 9 December 2022. A burglary offence was taken into consideration at sentencing.
The court heard that the fire began on the balcony of the ground-floor apartment. Hughes’s father’s partner was awake and saw the blaze. As it intensified, the sliding glass door was blown into the apartment. She got her child outside, returned to ensure Hughes’s father, who has a brain impairment, escaped, and alerted neighbours before calling the fire brigade.
Nobody suffered physical injury, but the apartment and its contents were destroyed. Damage was estimated at €80,000 to €90,000, and the occupants experienced continuing psychological effects.
The prosecution case established through CCTV that Hughes was the perpetrator, while paint from the recently painted balcony was also found on his jacket. Hughes accepted on appeal that animosity towards his father was his motive.
Hughes was 19 at the time. The sentencing court also considered his ADHD diagnosis, mental-health difficulties, drug and alcohol dependency, severe intoxication, difficult upbringing and an asserted suicide attempt earlier that day. He had 50 previous convictions, including arson and criminal damage.
The Court of Appeal rejected his argument that the 12-year headline sentence was excessive. It held that the offending was intentional and premeditated, occurred when residents were likely to be asleep, endangered several people and involved a previous relevant conviction.
The court also found no error in reducing the headline sentence by three-and-a-half years for mitigation or in declining to suspend part of the sentence. The appeal was dismissed.