Shopkeeper sentenced to three months in prison for arson

The worse for drink, he rowed with his common law wife Mabel Bonner when she refused to re-open her shop so he could get some cigarettes.

They had been living together for about a dozen years after he had lost his job in a naval dockyard at the end of the Second World War through redundancy and they began hawking around the Hampshire countryside with a small cart, so successfully they purchased a small shop in Canon Street, Winchester, with the proceeds.

But their business relationship had its ups and downs as prosecutor Blake Odgers explained to jurors at Hampshire Assizes in 1977. "He had a great deal to do with the working of it, and the real trouble between them was that he thought it was not being properly managed while he was away working as a gamekeeper."

The friction came to a head one night after she had shut up the shop and he was desperate for some cigarettes.

He forced open the front door and started a fire, possibly with oil kept at the rear of the premises, which damaged the counter and destroyed stock before it was extinguished. 

The court heard it was unclear whether he was a help or a hindrance when the fire was being tackled but the barrister, however, was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. 

"There is a conflict of evidence in that respect." he told Mr Justice Dunn. "Probably, Your Lordship will be disposed to think the true state of affairs was that, realising the seriousness of what he had done, he did bestir himself and do what he could to put out the fire."

Wakefield, 36, pleaded guilty on the basis that if the building had caught fire, it would have amounted to arson. His plea of not guilty to the graver charge of setting fire to the property while Bonner and her two children were inside, was accepted by the prosecution.

The widow handed in a letter to the judge saying she had forgiven him and Romsey dairyman Mr Pearce, who had recently employed Wakefield, was called as a character witness, testifying: "He is honest and hard working, and I will endeavour to keep his place open for him if he is not away too long."

But the judge said he could not regard the offence lightly, though he was certain Wakefield was sorry.

"I am, My Lord," he earnestly replied when asked if he had anything to say before sentence.

Mr Justice Dunn (Image: Archive)

 The judge then continued: "I cannot pass over setting fire to a place in a fit of temper with some punishment which could have been meted out with many years penal servitude."

Advising him to control his temper and shun drink, he told Wakefield: "Under all the circumstances, the sentence will be a short one. Three months imprisonment."