THREE TEENAGERS set fire to the furniture in a gate lodge holiday home in Mountcharles, Co Donegal, and caused €60,000 worth of damage, a court was told yesterday.
One of them, a girl who was 15 at the time, now has a nine-month-old baby girl, Donegal Circuit Court was told.
The girl, who cannot be identified because of her age, and a young man, 20-year-old Edgar Kearns, admitted arson at Gate Lodge, Hall Demesne, Mountcharles, on March 8th, 2008.
Another teenage girl, also too young to be named, has already been dealt with by an earlier court.
Judge John O’Hagan said: “Three young people with time on their hands considered they controlled the world and the world was not a place they liked to be in and they wanted to show the world they could control it.
“The act that was done was absolutely deliberate.”
The judge heard that the teenagers piled up furniture and then set it alight. “When thick black smoke emerged they fled the premises.”
He said he believed that Kearns, who was 18 at the time, and the mother, now 17, were remorseful for what they did and they had not been in trouble with gardaí since.
Kearns, of Millrace Crescent, Donegal town, was sentenced to two years, suspended on condition that he does 150 hours of community service.
Because of conditions that apply under the Children’s Act, Judge O’Hagan put the girl’s case back until Friday when he will hear from the Probation Service.
He told her she now had an opportunity to experience the demands of parenting.