A woman has spoken of the devastating impact on her family after her mum’s jilted lover set fire to their Aberdeen home, causing £275,000 of damage.
James Gallacher, 56, admitted starting the blaze that ripped through the Bucksburn property, destroying the family’s treasured possessions and memories built up over a lifetime.
Aberdeen Sheriff Court heard how Gallacher waited for his ex-partner to go on holiday before using a stolen key to enter her home.
Once inside, he poured lighter fluid over her bed and set it alight.
Neighbours, awoken by the sound of the windows exploding, looked out to see flames leaping up the building as the fire tore through the house.
Sheriff Ian Wallace told Gallacher he was fortunate the blaze had not been even more “catastrophic” and warned him that a prison sentence was at the forefront of the court’s mind.
The victim’s daughter, 27, said she hoped Gallacher would be jailed for his crimes – but added that “no prison sentence will get back what we’ve lost”.
“We have to live with what he’d done and my mum has to live the rest of her life with the trauma of what he’s done,” she said.
“He has taken everything from us.
“We are just a normal family – we never thought he was capable of doing what he did.”
Woman was on holiday at the time
Fiscal depute Dylan Middleton told the court that when the couple’s relationship broke down late last year, Gallacher’s former partner gave him three hours to remove his belongings from the house.
At this time, and unknown to the woman, a spare key to her Rowett South Road home was taken by Gallacher.
On October 20 last year, the woman took her child on holiday to the north of England.
Gallacher was informed of this by a relative.
At around 2.30am the following morning, a neighbour was awoken by the sound of glass smashing and looked outside to see flames coming from a bedroom window of the house.
As firefighters attended, they found the blaze had taken hold on the upper floor of the house and a rear door was unlocked.
Upon entry, they found a bottle of lighter fluid near the unlocked door and a gas cylinder on the living room floor. Thankfully, no one was found inside.
Fire deemed ‘wilful in nature’
After they extinguished the blaze, firefighters identified the upper front bedroom as the starting place of the fire and believed an accelerant may have been used “due to the developed stage of the fire”.
They found no natural cause and assessed the fire to be “wilful in nature”.
Police called Gallacher’s former partner and informed her there had been a fire at her home.
It was established that Gallacher may have had a set of keys for the property and could have been in the house at the time of the fire.
Officers attended Gallachar’s residence to carry out a welfare check and upon speaking with police, he immediately admitted to starting the fire.
He cited “relationship problems” and issues relating to his mental health as being the motive.
“The accused advised that he knew the complainer would be away from home and that no one would get hurt,” Mr Middleton said.
“His admissions and remarks were caught on a police constable’s body-worn video camera.”
Initial discussions with the insurance company for the property estimate that the damage was in the region of £275,000.
In the dock, Gallacher admitted one charge of wilfully setting fire to a bed, which spread to the rest of the house.
The fire tore through many of the rooms in the home, including a playroom used by the woman’s youngest daughter.
The family have been forced to live in hotels and temporary accommodation for almost 12 months, with no guarantee the house will be fully repaired by the end of this year.
In a cruel twist of fate, the woman’s daughter revealed that her mum’s family photographs and mementoes were completely destroyed in the fire, while a kit bag belonging to Gallacher that contained his own treasured possessions survived the unscathed.
“His memories survived that fire and ours did not,” she said, adding: “I hope he goes to prison to pay for what he did, but there’s no prison sentence that will get back what we lost.”
The woman said that the experience has “irrevocably altered” her mum’s life in ways she is still struggling to come to terms with.
She said the fire is the first thing her mum thinks about when she wakes up in the morning and the last thing she thinks about at night.
“My mum is just taking it a day at a time,” the young woman said, adding that the charity Women’s Aid has been instrumental in helping her mum recover from the lingering trauma of what happened.
‘Significant emotional and financial impact’
As he deferred sentence on Gallacher in order for a criminal justice social work report and a restriction of liberty order assessment to be carried out, Sheriff Wallace told him that the consequences of what he did “could have been catastrophic”.
“You have pled guilty to a very serious offence,” he said.
“Your offending had a very significant emotional and financial impact on your former partner.
“A prison sentence will be at the forefront of the courts mind in relation to this.”
Sheriff Wallace deferred sentence on Gallacher, of Wellheads Avenue, Aberdeen, until October 4 this year.
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