A dad set his son’s home on fire with smouldering hot barbeque coals that were left under an upturned sofa.
Darren McKenzie, 45, started the blaze at his son’s flat on Rose Street, Aberdeen, following a party at the property.
Firefighters who were called to extinguish the flames arrived to discover an upturned sofa with still-burning barbecue coals underneath it.
The cost of the damage to the building and resulting repair bill came to over £5,000, Aberdeen Sheriff Court was told.
McKenzie appeared in the dock on Friday and admitted causing the costly incident.
Firefighters forced entry to smoke-filled flat
Fiscal depute David Rogers told the court, around 7pm on August 2 2020, a neighbour of McKenzie’s son called the fire brigade.
He’d heard a smoke alarm going off and saw smoke coming from under the door of the property.
The neighbour then exited the tenement block, which included six separate residences, and waited for firefighters to arrive.
“Scottish Fire and Rescue arrived a short time later and observed smoke billowing from the locus,” Mr Rogers said.
“The front door of Flat B was locked and so entry was forced.
“The flat was filled with smoke and the cause of the fire was found to be an upturned sofa in the living room, which had charcoal beneath it, and this was extinguished.
“All the windows in the property were locked and secured, which firefighters opened to let the smoke escape.
“The accused’s son later confirmed that his father had a set of keys.”
Investigation found cause of blaze
McKenzie, a father of six, was traced by police and admitted that he had been in the property picking up some belongings earlier that evening.
He said there had been no fire when he was there.
An investigation concluded that the cause of the fire was a pack of barbecue coals that were placed under the upturned sofa in the living room.
Discarded cigarette butts were also found all over the floor of the flat.
Police carried out a check of McKenzie’s Facebook page and found that on August 2 he had posted a number of times about fire.
McKenzie was arrested, however, he denied deliberately setting the fire.
Instead, he said had been smoking while in the flat and may have dropped his cigarette on the floor when he left.
‘This was a very serious situation’
The damage to the flat, which actually belongs to the taxpayer-funded Aberdeen City Council, was assessed to be £5,086.
McKenzie pled guilty to one charge of recklessly setting a fire and causing damage to a property.
Defence solicitor Caitlin Pirie told the court that her client suffers from mental health issues and that he had not offended since this incident.
“It is clear that this was not a deliberate act by him,” she said.
Sheriff Andrew Miller told McKenzie: “You pled guilty to the alternative offence here, in other words, it was accepted that you did not set this fire but you accepted that you were at fault by doing something that was careless and reckless.
“This was a very serious situation because, if the situation had not been noticed when it was, it could have had more serious consequences for other residents in the block.
“Thankfully it was stopped quite quickly due to your neighbours and Scottish Fire and Rescue.”
As an alternative to a prison sentence, Sheriff Miller imposed a community payback order on McKenzie, of Stoneyton Terrace, Bucksburn, with two years of supervision.
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