Boy given referral order for Oratory school fire

A 16-year-old boy has been given a referral order after starting a fire at a Catholic school in west London that caused damage put at £2m.

A major incident was declared when the blaze broke out in the atrium of the London Oratory School in Fulham on 27 December last year.

The youth, who cannot be named because of his age, was arrested by police on the same day and initially denied a charge of arson before later pleading guilty to the offence on 2 September.

He was cleared at the trial of the more serious charge of arson with recklessness for endangering life.

The fire happened on the fourth floor of the school library, with the building and surrounding area having to be evacuated, prosecutor Angela Mahadeo told Wimbledon Magistrates' Court.

The teenager had written a note of apology and made a 999 call immediately after the fire, but also kicked a responding police constable, the court heard previously.

Edward Fenner, defending, said the youth went to the school "seeking to commit suicide".

He said the defendant was of good character and had a depressive episode at the time of the offences.

The defendant told the judge: "I am sorry and I'm not the same person that I was a year ago."

District judge Andrew Sweet gave the defendant a referral order for 10 months and ordered him to pay £100 compensation to the police officer he had kicked and a £26 victim surcharge.

He added that an assessment had been made that the youth was of low risk of re-offending, which he agreed with.

A statement from the school's headmaster Daniel Wright was read out by Ms Mahadeo, which had been written in May, in which he said the cost of the damage at that point was in the region of £2m.

He said 1,105 pupils missed five days of on-site education following the blaze, and 360 pupils had missed 13 days.

Mr Wright said the school's library and its 25,000 books were an insurance write-off, 11 classrooms were periodically unusable, and "significant amounts" of science equipment had been damaged irreparably.

"This incident has caused serious disruption to the school," he said.

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