AN ARSONIST who was spared prison first time round has been jailed after making threats to kill.

Robert Stanley, aged 23, was originally handed two suspended sentences for arson by Weymouth magistrates in March.

But a few days later he sent a letter to someone he knew saying: “You had better watch your backs.

“If I find you I will kill you. If I see you I will kill you. Now it’s personal, it’s payback – beware of the full moon on the fifth day.”

Stanley appeared at Dorchester Crown Court to be sentenced for sending the threat to kill and for breaching his suspended sentences.

Judge Roger Jarvis called his behaviour ‘wickedly foolish’.

Stephen Parish, prosecuting told the court that the first incident of arson took place on February 28 this year when Stanley set fire to a civic building in Bridport because the council ‘wouldn’t re-house’ him.

On March 5, he set fire to a wooden shed in a sports ground on Knightsdale Road, Weymouth.

He appeared before magistrates on March 5, where he was handed a 12-week jail term for the Bridport arson and six weeks for the Weymouth arson, both suspended for two years.

In mitigation, Tim Shorter said Stanley needed help and asked the court to ‘give him another chance’.

He added: “This is a young man who clearly does not, or has not, thought before he acted.

“The threat to kill was certainly in the heat of the moment.”

He added: “He knows he needs to learn to think before he acts.”

But Judge Jarvis told Stanley he didn’t seem to realise the chance he had already been given when the magistrates spared him jail.

He said: “First of all arson in February – foolish. Wickedly foolish. Some days after, another arson and then, not that long after, you wrote this letter that went to somebody who still loves you. I hope you are totally ashamed of yourself. I have no alternative other than to activate the suspended sentence.”

Stanley was sentenced to 16 months for the threat to kill and will serve the 18 weeks of the suspended sentence in prison, to run concurrently.