Man jailed for seven years after setting fire to front door of house containing family members
The family of five was only awakened by a neighbour who noticed the blaze in the early hours of the morning, and they were lucky they were not killed in the December 2024 incident, Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard on Tuesday.
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This was the second time Jason Flynn (46) had caused fire damage to the same house in Shankill, Dublin, with the court hearing he used to live in the house next door and set fire to that when he was evicted by the local council in 2001.
The 2001 fire also caused damage to the house in the current case along with a third house, Garda Stephen Ryan told Karl Moran BL, prosecuting.
Flynn, of Longford House, Spencer Dock, Dublin 1, pleaded guilty to one count of arson at an address in Shankill on December 5th, 2024 and one count of possessing cannabis for sale or supply at his home on December 23rd, 2024.
Gardaí found the drugs, with a street value of just under €2,000, on his kitchen table when they came to arrest him for arson.
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He has 19 previous convictions, including arson, assault causing serious harm and assault.
A letter from Flynn outlining his motive for starting the fire was handed into court, but not read aloud. The court heard it related to a grievance he had with a previous occupant of the house. Defence counsel said Flynn had mental health issues and things went 'awry' when he stopped taking his medication.
The mother of the affected family read out her victim impact statement in court, outlining the upset and trauma they have all faced in the wake of the fire. She said she was always very fire and security conscious and had recently installed a new front door and new windows in her home.
She said a fire officer later told her that the fire would have entered the house within five minutes if it hadn't been for the new door.
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A five-year-old grandson was staying with another family member that night, and the woman said they often think about how he could have woken up the following morning to find that every member of his maternal family, including his mother, was dead.
She said that having lived in the house next door for some years, Flynn would have been aware that the family would have to walk past the source of the fire to escape from the terraced house. She felt Flynn meant to cause them 'great harm', she said.
Although he had lived next door to them and had caused fire damage to the house when her elderly parents were living there, she said she had not seen him since 2001 and had no issue with him.
CCTV footage played in court showed Flynn approaching the house at 2.45am on the night in question and setting the car in the driveway alright at both the front and rear. He then walked away and surveyed the scene before returning to the front door where he set a Christmas wreath ablaze.
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A neighbour phoned the occupants about 15 minutes after it had started to alert them. The car exploded into flames and they had to walk past the alight front door to escape, getting out a back door.
Flynn was easily identifiable to gardaí from doorbell coverage of him setting fire to the Christmas wreath, and when gardaí went to arrest him on December 23rd, they found a bag of cannabis on his kitchen table with a street value of €1,999.
Flynn said he was not drug dealing but was 'feeling generous' and going to give it to his friends and not charge them money, the court heard.
Defence counsel Michael Hourigan SC said Flynn had a difficult upbringing. 'There are associations he makes with that particular area and his childhood,' he said of the house in Shankill. He said Flynn's partner was in court to support him.
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Sentencing Flynn on Tuesday, Judge Martin Nolan noted Flynn drove 19 kilometres from his home that night to the Shankill address to start the fire 'with malice and forethought'.
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'There was a chance that if the neighbours hadn't notice the fire, the fire would have eventually penetrated the door, entered the house, and much more serious consequences could have occurred,' the judge said.
He said Flynn set fire to the house in an act of 'misplaced vengeance towards the house'.
'The problem with fire is once it's started, no one knows where it ends up,' the judge said. 'People could have died on this particular night.'
Judge Nolan set a headline sentence of 10 to 12 years and then reduced it to seven years, taking into account the fact that Flynn's guilty pleas were signed guilty pleas from the District Court.
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