Luke Grey Thoroughgood, 20, refused bail over Canberra grass fire during total fire ban
Alleged firebug Luke Thoroughgood has previously been convicted of damaging a water fountain by setting fire to nearby cardboard boxes, a court has heard.
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An alleged firebug accused of lighting a grassfire during a total fire ban has a previous conviction for damaging property by setting fire to cardboard boxes next to a water fountain, a court has heard.
Luke Grey Thoroughgood, 20, was on Thursday refused bail in the ACT Magistrates Court, with Magistrate Bernadette Boss saying he posed an unacceptable risk to the community.
The court heard Thoroughgood has intellectual disabilities, mental health problems, drug and alcohol addictions and an IQ of 63.
Ms Boss said it was “exceptionally unsatisfactory for him to be in (jail)” but said there was no suitable place for him to be held.
“It appears that the offender has no insight into his conduct or ability to control himself,” she said.
“I form the view that the defendant presents a significant danger to the community.”
She said the case against Thoroughgood was “a reasonably compelling one”.
He is accused of lighting a grassfire in Deakin in the early hours of Sunday morning, during a total fire ban.
There was no damage to property and crews quickly extinguished the blaze.
Thoroughgood has pleaded not guilty and his lawyer, Michael Kukulies-Smith, said police saw the alleged offending as “misguided rather than malicious”.
Thoroughgood’s mother, Joanne Grey, told the court she would have been prepared to rent a place to stay with her son away from the family home because of a barrage of online threats against him.
Those messages include threats burn him alive, run him over and sodomise him with barbed wire.
Some of the people making threats against him knew where the family home was and the threats have continued inside jail since her son was locked up on the weekend, Ms Grey told the court.
Ms Grey said she had been trying to get her son into rehab interstate, and was looking for a place “in the middle of nowhere” for her son to go.
Ms Grey said her son had been mixing with a bad crowd in recent months.
“I most recently found out there was ice involved as well,” she said.
“He needs drug rehabilitation and he needs assistance with his mental health problems.”
Thoroughgood returns to court at a later date.