An Illawarra arsonist high on ice when he set fire to an abandoned building inside the former Dapto Bowling Club grounds has been sentenced to jail time and live-in rehabilitation.
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Rhys Morrison, 28, was handed an eight-month prison sentence in Wollongong Local Court on Friday after confessing to illegally entering the disused site on the afternoon of December 11 last year and setting the 70-year-old house ablaze.
With time served, he will be released on parole at the end of September.
However, Morrison will have less than a week of freedom before he must report to staff at Community Corrections to organise his admission to a residential drug and alcohol rehabilitation program.
Defence lawyer Matt Russoniello confirmed Morrison's crime had been the result of a relapse into drug use while he was on parole for other offences.
"The issue will be preventing him from using ice again," Mr Russoniello said of Morrison's eventual release from custody.
"Old habits die hard and it's brought him back before the court on these matters."
In setting the strict conditions, Magistrate Roger Clisdell said Morrison was in dire need of professional help to treat his addiction.
Court documents said CCTV captured Morrison entering the overgrown bowling club site around lunchtime carrying a clear plastic bottle in his hand.
He emerges three minutes later, without the bottle and walks off up the street.
The footage shows black smoke begin to pour out of the house and the building go up in flames within minutes.
Emergency services were called to extinguish the fire, while Dapto High School had to be put into lockdown and all the classroom windows closed over fears of absestos-related smoke drifting west.
Investigators subsequently obtained CCTV footage of the incident and posted it on the NSW Police Force Facebook page seeking help to identify the culprit.
By January 13, the video had been viewed more than 50,000 times, however police had already received the information they needed care of an anonymous caller who phoned Crime Stoppers six days earlier.
Morrison was arrested on January 30 and charged with damaging more than $15,000 worth of property by fire.
In court on Friday, police prosecutor Sergeant Matthew Goode said Morrison's actions had caused so much damage to the building it had to be bulldozed.
"This offence was committed without any regard for public safety and [Morrison] made no attempt to extinguish the fire," he said, noting Morrison's prior record involved matters of dishonesty and another property damage charge.
