Woman set fire to her own Council house, court is told

Date Published: 19-May-2011

By Ann Healy

A 45-year-old city woman has gone on trial at Galway Circuit Criminal Court charged with setting fire to her local authority house at Tulach Ard, Rahoon over four years ago.

Veronica MacAnespie, of 38 Tulach Ard, Rahoon, denies setting fire to the semi-detached house, owned by Galway City Council at the above address on November 28, 2007.

Two units of Galway Fire Brigade were called to the house fire at around 5am that morning and had to break in because both the front and back doors were locked.

The cost of repairing fire and smoke damage was estimated at over €65,000. City Council carried out the repairs and returned Ms MacAnespie to the house.

Detective Garda John Lavery said two spent matches and a number of plastic bottles containing petrol were found in the kitchen and in an upstairs bedroom and bathroom while a five-litre petrol can was found on the stairs when the house was forensically examined after the fire.

Garda Darragh Ainsworth told the court he arrived at the scene shortly after 5am and was told the accused, who was the sole occupier, was not in the house at the time. He and Garda Dermot Cummins went looking for the accused and found her walking down Circular Road with black smoke and soot on her face and hands.

Her hair was matted with soot and there were soot marks under her nostrils. She was using a crutch and was dragging a number of large suitcases and plastic bags after her.

Garda Ainsworth said he got a very strong smell of petrol from the woman which surprised him at the time. City Council housing officer, Patricia Philbin, told the trial Ms MacAnespie had lodged over forty complaints with the Council about her neighbours from 2002 to the time of the fire.

Most of the complaints, she said were made against Anthony McDonagh and his family who lived at no 37 Tulach Ard.

Ciaran O’Loughlin SC defending, said Ms MacAnespie did not want to go to the Gardai because she was afraid of Anthony McDonagh.

He said she would say he had threatened to burn her house down and had threatened to kill her son, who had since gone to live in Waterford.

Mr O’Loughlin said no traces of accelerants were found on Ms MacAnespie’s clothes when they were forensically examined.

He said she was on her way to catch a train to Kildare and from there to Waterford to see her son on the morning her house caught fire and she was unaware of the fire until the Gardai told her.

Mr McDonagh, who is currently serving a 12-year prison sentence for shooting part of another man’s hand off, told the jury Ms McAnespie was a liar. He said he never had any problems with his next-door neighbour and in fact, he had helped her out over the years.

The trial continues today.

Read more in today’s Galway City Tribune