Worthing serial arsonist jailed (From The Argus)

Worthing serial arsonist jailed

1:40pm Wednesday 19th January 2011 in News By Ben Parsons, Crime Reporter

A woman who started 17 fires in a three-month arson spree has been jailed for at least four years.

Carla Kimber was working at a Tesco petrol station when she began starting fires late at night in Worthing.

Police said it was only “extreme good fortune” that no-one was seriously injured.

In one attack, a homeless woman’s belongings were set alight as she slept next to them in a car park at the Carpenter Box accountancy firm in Grafton Road, Worthing.

The woman was unhurt but the flames caused damage worth several thousand pounds to the building.

After a lull, the fires became more regular over the coming weeks.

Burning paper was pushed through the letterboxes or windows of businesses and homes.

In one case in Rackham Road, Worthing, a couple in their 60s were trapped in their bungalow when flames from two burning garden bins spread to their conservatory.

The same night, Kimber, of no fixed abode, had set fire to trees and hedges in Lindum Way, Littlehampton Road and Selsey Close.

Between August 21 and November 29, 2009, she also started fires in New Broadway, Lenhurst Way, Muirfield Road, Eriswell Road, Portland Road, Clifton Road, Poling Close, Bellview Road, Stonehurst Road, Curzon Close and Normandy Road.

She was working at the Tesco petrol station in Littlehampton Road at the time.

She was caught after a police officer caught her behaving suspiciously in Rackham Road on November 29, 2009.

Now 31, she spent 409 days in custody before being sentenced on Friday.

At Chichester Crown Court she was handed a four-year indeterminate sentence for public protection.

The sentence means she must prove to a Parole Board that she is no longer a risk to the public before being released.