The defendant accused of setting fire to the house where his ex-girlfriend and their three-year-old son lived in 2014 in a house in the Argana Alta neighborhood, has admitted the facts in the trial held in the capital of Lanzarote by the Second Section of the Provincial Court of Las Palmas and which has been seen for sentencing. The woman stated that he had already threatened to burn her "because it was silent and no one would find out", although she never thought he was "going to do something to me with my son inside the house".
The defendant, Vincenso Pernice, said that his intention was not to cause damage but to "scare and smoke the wall so that when she [his ex-partner] returned to the house she would find the stain." He was "repentant and ashamed" of what happened and hoped that "one day they will forgive him." He justified that he had sprayed gasoline on the main door of the house and in the garage, and that he had caused the fire with a lighter because he felt "frustrated" since he "could not act as a father." According to him, the mother of his son prevented him from seeing the minor. He added that he had gone out partying the night the event occurred and that he had used drugs. "I was high," he detailed. He also said that he had not noticed that there might be someone inside the property. "At no time did I hear anyone inside the house." He stressed that "I never threatened to burn her."
The woman explained that at about ten o'clock on the night before the fire she had taken the child "ready with his pajamas to sleep" and that she had been "surprised because he said goodbye to the child as if he was not going to see him again" to which she said: "Don't worry, you're going to see him tomorrow." She acknowledged that she saw her ex-partner, with whom she lived for just over a year, "quite calm and relaxed, unlike when he used drugs, which made him more aggressive."
Both the Prosecutor's Office and the private prosecution confirmed the request for penalties that they had previously requested for Pernice, that is, 20 years in prison for the crime of arson with danger to the life and physical integrity of people and for the crime of injuries, in addition to 30 years of removal to a minimum of 500 meters from the private home, their place of work and any other that both the ex-partner and the son of both frequent, as well as the prohibition of communicating with them. He must compensate the child's mother with 630 euros for the injuries suffered by the child and the owner of the house with 5,542.93 euros for the damage caused. For its part, the defense also confirmed its initial request of five to ten years for a crime of mitigated arson.
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