Girls sentenced for warehouse arson

A FIRE started by two schoolgirls playing with a cigarette lighter and a can of hairspray, caused devastating damage to a new warehouse, a court heard.

The blaze in Meek Street, off Higginshaw Lane, Royton, spiralled out of control within minutes, and it was 10 days later before it had burned itself out.

The cost of the inferno at the warehouse, owned by the Oldham-based recycling and demolition firm Connell Group, was estimated at almost £1 million.

The building, which had been complete with the exception of the windows, was destroyed.

More than 40 firefighters tackled the blaze.

Manchester’s Minshull Street Crown Court was told that the fire had been deliberately started by the girls on May 12 last year.

The pair, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had been with a group of other youngsters intending to play a hide and seek-style manhunt game.

The girls, aged 13 and 14, climbed over a wall to get inside, then the elder used her cigarette lighter and hairspray to start a fire.

When it flared out of control they panicked and ran.

Sentencing both girls, who pleaded guilty to an offence of arson by recklessness, Judge Leslie Hull told them: “It caused huge financial loss and could have caused serious injury or worse.”

Hugh Edwards, defending the 14 year old, said: “They could not have envisaged that what they were doing could lead to such catastrophic results.”

Robert Mann, for the 13 year old, said: “The consequences were far beyond what either could possibly have imagined.”

Judge Hull said he accepted both had had problems in their lives at the time, and had not been in trouble before. He imposed 12-month intensive referral orders on both girls, which will include close supervision by the probation service.
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