A woman who torched her own caravan, putting lives in danger, before lying to police as she sought to carry out insurance fraud has been jailed for six years.
Catherine McCreadie had owned a caravan which was kept at Inglewood Park, east of Whitehaven.
But as 60-year-old McCreadie fell into debt, both generally and with the park owners, they issued an eviction notice and asked her to remove the van as she had also flouted site rules.
Carlisle Crown Court heard that while chatting with a park resident and former warden several years before the fire, McCreadie allegedly said: “The only way that van is going off here is when I’ve burned it.”
When the woman pointed out there were gas bottles present and that she might blow everybody else up, McCreadie had effectively responded it was not her problem.
Then on the night of September 13 2020, witnesses described a fire raging in a caravan. Some bystanders disconnected and removed gas bottles behind it because of the size of a blaze which they bravely tried to tackle.
A Cumbria Fire and Rescue Service officer said an investigation had concluded the fire was started deliberately, noting that at the time it was not connected to any energy source. Given the level of destruction, no forensic sampling was possible.
When quizzed by police, McCreadie said the caravan was insured for £20,000, the contents for £8,000 and that she filed a claim two weeks after the fire.
However, she denied being responsible for starting the blaze and told a jury she had planned to move the caravan from the site. McCreadie denied charges of arson recklessly endangering life, fraud and attempting to pervert the course of justice — but was found guilty by jurors after a trial.
“The reckless endangerment of life came from the fact that there was the lighting of the fire in her own caravan in the early hours of the morning when other occupants of the caravan park were likely to be asleep,” said prosecutor Tim Evans as McCreadie was sentenced today; “lighting it in a caravan that was so close to others and in particular so close to the large pressurised gas bottles that fuelled the nearby caravans.
“The consequences of other caravans going alight and in particular of the gas bottles exploding could — and would if it if had happened — have been catastrophic. The evidence was that every single fire extinguisher on the caravan site was used to seek to control — but not put out — the fire prior to the attendance of the fire service.
“Indeed fire extinguishers had to be used to cool gas bottles while the fire was being controlled so that the gas bottles could be moved from the nearest caravan. The evidence was that both the pressurised bottles and indeed the nearest occupied caravan were but metres away.”
McCreadie, a former professional carer, had sought to create a false alibi after the fire was started, the court heard, travelling to Barnard Castle to sleep in a van. But traffic cameras showed her car in the area of the caravan park around the time of the fire.
Maxwell Cope, defending, said McCreadie, of Esk Avenue, Whitehaven, had spoken of deteriorating mental health, of cracking at the time and of suffering flashbacks to childhood trauma.
“She acted impulsively. At no time did she think about the gas bottles or the consequences her actions could have,” said Mr Cope, who called her offending out of character.
But jailing McCreadie, Recorder Eric Lamb told her: “Having heard the evidence in the case and the steps which were necessary to contain the fire, I have no hesitation in concluding that there was a high risk of very serious injury or death.”
