Fire-starter jailed for attacks on churches

[rug]

Thursday, September 05, 2013
By Aly Walsh

AN arsonist has been jailed for torching two churches – destroying bibles, 15th-century furniture and a kitchen bought with a legacy donation from a member of the congregation.

Joseph Fretti caused up to £50,000 damage when he set fire to St Edmund's Church, in Allestree, and St Andrew's, in Twyford.

At St Edmund's, the blaze ripped through a newly-fitted kitchen in the church hall, which was used by groups including the local Brownies and parent-and-toddler meetings, causing about £40,000 damage.

And at the Twyford church the fire destroyed a 15th-century wooden cross, vestries, an antique chest, vicars' robes and bibles – worth about £10,000 and some of the items "irreplaceable".

http://www.thisisderbyshire.co.uk/starter-jailed-attacks-churches/story-19749486-detail/story.html#axzz2e1tbCVll

[cbayer]

1. How sad. I hope he gets the help he needs, because he sounds ill.

Someone set our church on fire when I was a teen. My father had been working with gangmembers and one of them purposefully set the church on fire. IIRC, he had a major psychiatric illness.

Anyway, it was pretty devastating and I will never, ever forget the smell.

[rug]

2. That's what the priest said when she was interviewed.

"I'm just hoping that when he's in prison he gets the help for whatever it was that made him do something so potentially dangerous to him and other people."

Apparently he was drunk as well.

[MrModerate]

3. Not so much an atheist . . .

As a sad, ill person.

[rug]

4. That's usually the case with these stories.

[cbayer]

5. Like most people that commit heinous acts that are reported in this group frequently.