Arsonist jailed for attack on Chelmsford Brahma Kumaris meditation centreBy Simon Murfitt
AN ARSONIST set fire to a Chelmsford meditation centre and a woman's home because he was angry with a religious organisation that he quit more than 20 years ago.
Stephen Finch, 52, was jailed for five years on Monday after pleading guilty to torching the Inner Space meditation centre in Chelmsford – a hub for the Brahma Kumaris Spiritual University that he quit two decades ago.
Prosecutor Sasha Bailey told Chelmsford Crown Court how on Boxing Day last year, Steve Wills, the owners of the mediation centre and bookshop in Gloucester Avenue, got a phone call to warn him his store was on fire.
He met Finch at a Chelmsford meditation centre in 1992, but when Finch quit in 1997 he started getting prank phone calls.
"Mr Wills had suffered harassing telephone calls that had come through to his work and mobile number," Miss Bailey told the court. "He remembers a telephone call made to him when the person said 'how did you get so fat?' and he remembers that he had put on quite a lot of weight since he had seen Mr Finch last. "When CCTV of the fire was viewed by Mr Wills he said he believed the person on the film was Mr Finch and was 100 per cent sure."
The blaze caused £22,000 of damage and 2,315 of books and CDs were destroyed.
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Miss Bailey also told the court how Finch had sprayed the word 'evil' across the shop window on October 19, before the arson attack, and that he had carried out a similar attack on a woman in Kelvedon Hatch, whom he had met at a meditation centre in Ilford.
"She left her car outside her house and in the morning when she woke was shocked to see there was spray paint on the door and bonnet and windows of the car," she said. "On January 6 she came home at around 5.30pm and saw her neighbours hanging around outside her house and she became aware there was smoke billowing out of her house.
"She opened the door and thick smoke came out and she was unable to get in. Her cat was brought out by the fire service and had to have a child's oxygen mask in order to survive. The damage to the property was around £80,000, and other expenses such as veterinary care for her cat, travelling expenses and temporary accommodation totalled £611. There were also a number of old photographs of her family that were lost."
Finch was arrested two days after the attack on the house on January 18.
Gavin Burrall, defending, told the court how Finch felt 'somewhat aggrieved' by the Brahma Kumaris religious organisation. "The defendant suffers from ME, from time to time he suffers from seizures and he suffers from anxiety and depression," he said. "Anxiety due to his personal relationship and debt brought him to think of things from the past and carry out these offences. The defendant was effectively seeking to show he was unhappy with the organisation by starting the fires, he described it as a breakdown at that particular moment in time."
Judge Patricia Lynch added: "We know that the arsons were terribly dangerous offences and they must have been terrifying. You must know, or now know, that to pour petrol into anyone's letter box and set fire to it could endanger lives.
"You have anxiety and depression to such a degree that when something goes wrong in your personal life your behaviour becomes irrational. These incidents, although separated by time, were when you were being irrational and not thinking straight, nonetheless they were very serious matters. You took out your anxiety, your anger and your ill feelings on these particular issues and you should have known better."
Judge Lynch gave Finch credit for his guilty pleas but jailed him for four years for each of the arson attacks, to be served at the same time.
He also got another year for each count of religiously aggravated criminal damage.
She also made an indefinite order restricting Finch from approaching any of his victims or any building linked to the Brahma Kumaris Spiritual University.