Man who blew roof off Wakefield outhouse after igniting petrol cannister avoids custody

Michael McCormack locked himself in the brick building on Sunnyhill Crescent in Wrenthorpe, near Wakefield, after saying he was going to take an overdose of insulin.

Leeds Crown Court was previously told that the 36-year-old struggled with alcoholism and mental health issues. He had lost his job after he was caught drink driving last year.

He said he would not drink on New Year’s Eve but then did, and an argument broke out between McCormack and his partner and she went to bed.

In the early hours he barricaded himself in the outhouse and refused to come out, sending messages to his partner inside the house, sending her pictures of the insuling and the petrol in the jerry can that was housed in the outbuilding.

He also sent a video that showed him opening the lid of a jerry can and spilling the fuel onto the floor as he shook it. He told her if she called anyone they would arrive armed and "would shoot him."

With concerns growing, the emergency services were called at around 2.30am and they then tried and failed to break into the building through the reinforced steel door.

But McCormack then sparked a light with ignited the fumes and the fuel, blowing the door open and the roof off. He suffered burns and spent four days in hospital and later needed a skin graft operation. He later said he did not realise the fumes would ignite.

Judge Penelope Belcher said it was “sheer fluke” that nobody was hurt in the explosion.

McCormack, of Firtree Crescent, Newcastle, admitted arson which was reckless as to whether life was endangered.

Mitigating, George Hazel-Owram said: “The real issue is alcohol. It clearly has compounded the issue she has with his mental health. He has been very candid about it.

“He is genuinely deeply sorry about this.”

He initially appeared in court in March to be sentenced, but on that occasion, Judge Penelope Belcher deferred sentencing and told him if he could remain alcohol free for the next five months, she would not send him in to custody.

Deferring sentence until this week, the court heard that he had abstained, had not committed any further offences and had stable accommodation. He has also trained as a railway engineer and while he waits for a suitable vacancy, is being lined up for a temporary warehouse job

Judge Belcher told him: “You have complied with the requirements, and probation says you are a very different person with a very different outlook. But you need to understand, I’m not suggesting it’s easy to abstain from alcohol, but it’s much easier to do it when a judge could send you to prison. It will be more difficult now.”

She gave him a two-year sentence, suspended for two years, a nine-month alcohol treatment requirement, 50 hours of unpaid work and 20 rehabilitation days.