A patient who caused £2 million worth of damage after starting a fire in a hospital A&E department has been jailed for more than six years. John Watson, 57, was captured on CCTV prowling the corridors of Lincoln County Hospital before setting fire to the contents of a medical trolley last March.
The department had to be closed for 48 hours after damage was caused to a CT scanner, MRI machine and a mobile ultrasound machine as a result of the blaze. A court heard Watson entered the hospital as a patient before setting the fire in an imaging room just off the main A&E department in the early hours of March 29.
Sick and injured patients had be evacuated from the busy A&E as a there was a "huge risk" of igniting medical oxygen piping running through the hospital. Detectives found CCTV showing a man wearing a distinctive black jacket with Elvis on the back – later identified as Watson – in an area being engulfed with smoke before he was moved by firefighters.
There were no other people captured on CCTV in the area at the time of the fire starting and Watson was arrested around 11am that day. Watson, of Sleaford, Lincolnshire, admitted arson on January 20 and was jailed for six years and nine months at Lincoln Crown Court on Monday.
The court was told how damage to diagnostic equipment meant that more than 3,300 patient appointments for diagnostic tests were delayed. Six crews from Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue were required to tackle the fire, which caused a total of £1.9 million worth of damage.
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Detective Sergeant Dave Patten, from Lincoln Police CID, said after the case: "This was one of the most serious and reckless cases of arson we have ever dealt with; the potential for harm should that fire have escalated is unthinkable. The impact on the community and the hospital teams has been profound, with patients having to be diverted to other treatment centres, and clean up and repair work impacting the use of a busy emergency department.
"This would have been very frightening for staff and patients, and I hope that today’s sentencing goes some way to providing some comfort that justice has been served against the individual responsible."
