Paul Kenneth Sheen had removed bricks from the wall between his and his neighbour's home before putting a blow torch through and burning beams and roof felt
A man who believed he was God removed bricks from his attic in order to poke a blow torch through to next door to try to set the roof alight.
Police were tipped off after Paul Kenneth Sheen told his psychiatric nurses about what he’d done. The owners of the house he tried to burn - by blow-lamping the beams in the attic - were totally unaware of what he’d done until officers told them.
When the roof space was explored bricks were found to have been taken out, and rafters and the roofing felt were charred from burning.
Sheen had been in a boundary dispute with his neighbours leading up to the arson attempt.
Judge Rhys Rowlands, sitting at Mold crown court, said: “You told a nurse you had tried to set the next door property alight, that you had tried for some minutes but you had been unable to do so.
“This is all because of a boundary dispute – an extreme and dangerous reaction to it.”
At the time he had stopped taking his medication and the arson involved taking revenge against his neighbour.
“On your own admission you showed some persistence and determination.
“The neighbour was unaware of what you had done.”
Prosecuting barrister Michael Whitty told how the complainant Christopher Erskine had lived at the property in Connah’s Quay High Street for 13 years.
One morning last August there was an incident in which it was alleged Sheen was shouting at passers-by and throwing things at them.
Police turned up, and Mr Erskine assumed that everything had been resolved. He had no idea what Sheen had been doing in the attic until police told him.
Interviewed by officers, he said he had only been trying to burn the shape of the letter ‘V’ into the beams. The judge said that claim was “simply nonsense”.
A fire officer later told how if the fire had taken hold it would have caused significant damage before it would have been noticed by anyone inside the property.
Interviewed, Sheen admitted using a blow torch on the rafters but denied removing the bricks.
Defending barrister Myles Wilson said that Sheen was clearly very ill at the time although he was an isolated man and no one had realised how bad he was.
He was delusional, believed he was God, believed the media were filming him and that all the newspaper headlines he saw were about him.
The defendant believed that he had written a book called The Theory of Everything and had been detained in hospital for some weeks.
He had not kept up the mortgage repayments and the house had been repossessed, and he was now better and co-operating with the medics.
He had requested that his medication be injected so that there was no longer a danger of him not taking it.
Sheen, with his fragile mental health, would struggle in custody, his barrister said.
He suggested a suspended sentence and rehabilitation, but Sheen was jailed for 18 months.
http://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/paul-sheen-connahs-quay-arson-12582054
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