Man responsible for Offaly fires is jailed for two years

A TWO-year jail sentence has been imposed on a man convicted of setting fire to a car in Tullamore nearly four years ago.

Fred Dolan, 55, with addresses at Chapel Street and Clonminch Wood in Tullamore, was sentenced to a total of five years for arson at Harbour Street in the town on June 9, 2018 but the final three years were suspended by Judge Keenan Johnson.

The arsonist, who had previous convictions for similar offences, including causing a fire at Kinnitty Castle and two hotels in Galway in the 1990s, was also ordered to pay €5,000 to the owner of the damaged car.

The sentence was imposed at this week's sitting of Tullamore Circuit Court and was backdated to July last year when Mr Dolan was remanded in custody in advance of finalisation of sentence.

A psychiatric report had been ordered by Judge Johnson in December and the court heard this week the man had no psychiatric illness.

A jury trial took place last year when Mr Dolan denied causing the fire in a Mercedes parked quite close to his then address at Chapel Street.

He was convicted after the jury viewed CCTV recorded from a camera at a public house, trading as Tanyard Lane at the time, on William Street.

The trial was also told that Mr Dolan had previously been convicted of arson at the Skeffington Arms Hotel, the Corrib Great Southern Hotel, Kinnitty Castle, and a house at Glenard Avenue, Salthill.

The arson at the Skeffington Arms was committed in December 1994 and the Kinnitty Castle offence occurred in September 1997.

Mr Dolan received a three-year suspended sentence for those offences and had not been convicted of arson again until found guilty of the 2018 Tullamore offence.

He also had convictions for two theft offences, one recorded at Tullamore District Court in 2017 and the other at Mullingar District Court the same year.

In July Judge Keenan Johnson remanded Mr Dolan in custody, saying the four previous convictions for arson were of “grave concern” to him and the accused was not entitled to bail, having been found guilty by a jury of another arson offence.

The two-day trial heard how the owner of the Mercedes had parked the car on Harbour Street and gone for a drink at 9.30pm on the evening of June 9, a Saturday.

CCTV footage from a camera above a door of the Tanyard Lane public house captured the door of the pub, the footpath, the junction of William Street and Harbour Street, and in the distance, a number of parked cars, one of which the prosecution said was the Mercedes which went on fire later that night.

The jury also saw footage from inside the pub and Mr Dolan accepted that he could be seen standing near the bar and looking out the window in the direction of Harbour Street.

The jury were also told that a figure recorded by the camera walking on Harbour Street and getting into the Mercedes at 10.30pm, leaving and returning to it, and then getting into the back of it for three minutes, was Mr Dolan.

The prosecution also said a man recorded crossing the street and going into the pub was Mr Dolan because he was wearing the same clothes as the accused inside at the bar.

The fire brigade had been called when smoke was seen coming from the back area of the car at 11.10pm and when the vehicle was examined afterwards, firelighters were found in it.

The jury also heard that Mr Dolan, who lived “around the corner” from where the car was parked, was recognised by a Tullamore-based detective garda in the footage from the interior of the pub.