Kelvin Green, 47, was apprehended in a property round the corner from where the motorbike was still smouldering in Oxford on December 20 in 2015.
He confessed being the man accountable for setting the fire, stating ‘I did it, nobody else, you nick my dog expect the consequences’.
Sentencing him to 12 months’ jail time suspended for 2 years, Recorder Joseph Hart said: “It was a vengeance attack based upon the suspicion that the owner of the moped, who in truth was not the owner of the moped, had actually been associated with losing your friend’s dog.
“Based on very little evidence you set fire to a vehicle in public in very dangerous circumstances.”
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Green, whose address was given up court documents at HMP Bullingdon, pleaded guilty at an early hearing to arson.
The judge provided him 20 rehab activity requirement days and bought he adhere to a 6 month alcohol treatment requirement, getting assistance with an enduring alcoholism.
Recorder Hart said: “Your past has been mired by difficulties with alcohol. I am most impressed by what the author of the pre-sentence report has to say.”
In the report, a probation officer said it appeared the accused was ‘starting to understand why’ he devoted offenses.
Weighing up the rights and wrongs of suspending the jail sentence, the judge said: “On the one hand you have actually a poor history of compliance.
“On the one hand you have not done anything to motivate the self-confidence of the court, however the pre-sentence report appears to recommend a sluggish and hard development which might suggest that you can be diverted from ever-increasing angering and longer and longer jail sentences.
“Given that the duty of a court is to punish an offence, to deter others but also to offer some degree of rehabilitation in my judgment the best way to protect the public from your repeated offending is to rehabilitate you if possible [and] get to the bottom of why you offend and stop you doing it. Not for you but for other people.”
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The suspended sentence suggests that Green, who remained in jail on remand awaiting his sentence, will just serve the prison time behind bars if he devotes more offenses or breaks the requirements enforced by the judge.
In a last remark to the accused, Recorder Hart said: “As you quite rightly said, you’re getting too old to be in and out of jail. The court is taking a chance; if you fail you know where you’re going.”
