Jacobee Butler alleged arsonist refused bail
A MAGISTRATE has denied an alleged Blue Mountains firebug any opportunity to light fires this summer by refusing his application for bail.
The Blue Mountains News
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A man’s “propensity to light fires” means he will spend the entirety of summer behind bars before facing charges of arson.
Alleged firebug Jacobee Butler, of Bell, is accused of sparking multiple grass fires in the Blue Mountains earlier this year.
In a police fact sheet tendered to Katoomba Local Court this week, police allege that after Butler’s arrest in August he told officers he was “obsessed with fire”.
Butler further explained that fires “provide him warmth”, that he lit them “out of boredom” “because that what the old land owners used to do”.
“It brings the grass back green,” he went on.
The 25-year-old unemployed man appeared before the court via video link, charged with intentionally causing a fire and be reckless as to its spread.
He was arrested at his rented home at 7.55pm on August 14, following reports of a grass fire at 134 Chifley Rd, Bell.
Police facts allege that during the early morning of August 14 he had “temporarily” lit a small section of grassland near the unfenced boundary of his property and a neighbouring vacant block.
He then attempted to extinguish it by “stamping his feet on it and pushing dirt over it” and removed a burned log from the area.
Later that morning, between 6.30am and 8.30am, while Butler was visiting Lithgow, a local resident observed smoke.
Police were notified of a grass fire about 4pm and the Rural Fire Service attended.
“There were many large logs/trees laying in the fire zone fuelling the fire,” according to the fact sheet.
By then the fire had grown to measure about 30m by 30m.
Police used a body worn video to interview Butler who was “very reluctant to surrender his cigarette lighters” when arrested at 7.55pm.
He was taken to Katoomba Police Station where he allegedly told police in the presence of his dad “as support” that he had “lit fires recently, but not as many as he wanted to”.
These had been lit at locations between his home and Bell Railway Station.
Butler, who has previously been diagnosed with schizophrenia, was offered and sought legal advice from Intellectual Disability Rights Service and his father later terminated the interview.
In court Butler told Magistrate Fiona Toose: “I’m not on any medication”.
She denied his bail application on the basis of “his propensity to light fires” and “the number of witnesses” — police told the court there were five.
Butler is due to appear at Katoomba Local Court via video link again on March 17, 2020.
Magistrate Toose ordered that a psychiatric report be undertaken before his next court appearance.