A man has been convicted of seven arson charges after cars were set alight in the Hightown area of Wrexham.
Alan Lloyd Paul Evans, 38, of Percy Road, Wrexham, was on a suspended sentence at the time for an earlier car fire in the same area.
Evans had denied any involvement in the fires, which all occurred between 6.40am and 7.06am on October 24 in Stuart Street, Hilbre Road, Waterloo Close and Percy Road.
Mold Crown Court heard that, after the first incident, he had promised his partner that he would stop drinking, but he got drunk and went out to get cigarettes.
He was caught on three CCTV cameras and the prosecution said that the fires all occurred on his way home.
Five of the seven cars were set alight by a flame being put to the number plates, which smouldered and eventually engulfed the vehicles.
Two other cars were damaged because they were parked next to a car which had been set alight.
Evans denied he was responsible for the early morning attacks, but was convicted by the jury at Mold Crown Court.
The judge, Mr Recorder Simon Mills, remanded him in custody pending sentence in about a month’s time.
He said he did not believe that the defendant would co-operate with a psychiatric report but he would ask for a pre-sentence report.
The judge said: “He has been convicted on utterly overwhelming evidence.”
He had not caused any injury to any person, but he had a previous conviction for the same thing.
“It is very troubling that a man sets fire to seven cars completely indiscriminately while on a suspended sentence for exactly the same thing,” he said.
Prosecutor Richard Edwards told the jury that Evans had been seen on the CCTV at the Beechley Service Station in Kingsmills Road, and then on two residential CCTV cameras in Saxon Road and Percy Road.
The glow of the flames could be seen in one film.
That night, he was clearly angry and there had been an exchange of text messages with his partner in which he spoke of his head being messed up and that he was going to “kill someone tonight”.
He said he would hand himself in to the police in a few days and that he needed help.
In evidence, he said that the text messages were nothing to do with the fires.
He had sent nasty text messages to his partner while drunk and believed he would get into trouble.
Henry Hills, defending, said there was no direct or forensic evidence to link him with the fires.
see-http://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/wrexham-man-convicted-setting-seven-10805325
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