Blaze boy blamed ‘ghost’.
A teenager who rebelled against his father blamed poltergeists for broken windows, crockery and a house fire, Warwick Crown Court heard. The father was so convinced that he told police about the ghosts that had plagued their home in Monks Drive, Studley. But Clive Philpotts, aged 18, later admitted starting the fire and being responsible for the other damage. Philpotts pleaded guilty to arson and sentence was put back for six months.
Mr Brian Farrer, prosecuting, said Philpotts was seeking attention and had become extremely difficult after being moved between the homes of his mother and father who were divorced. Mr Farrer said that when Mr Philpotts senior was driving his car he was hit on the head by a car pack. The son was sitting in the back and said it was a supernatural happening.
One night Mr Philpotts awoke to find his bed on fire, said Mr Farrer. Then he found his son in the lounge tackling another fire which damaged the carpet and curtains.
Mr Francis Allen, defending, said the son was a rather disturbed teenager but was now beginning to settle down.
Birmingham Mail, 14th September 1976.
Youth blamed the poltergeist when father’s bed caught fire.
A youth set the bed of his sleeping father on fire and blamed poltergeists, Warwick Crown Court was told on Monday. Mr Brian Farrer, prosecucting, said that there had been a number of strange happenings in the Studley home of Mr Frederick Philpotts when his son Clive Martin Philpotts was living with him.
A bath had overflowed, a number of crockery items and windows had been broken, an unlit gas fire was left on and a clock had hit Mr Philpotts. Clive Philpotts, 17, pleaded guilty to arson with intent to endanger life and to recklessly setting fire to the house. Mr Farrer said that it was not a conscious or deliberate attempt to endanger life but a reckless action. Clive Philpotts had had a disrupted family background and he may have started the fire to draw attention to himself. The adjoining semi-detached house was occupied by a couple and their two young children at the time of the fire.
On one occasion Mr Philpotts had been struck on the back of the head by a car jack while he was driving.
Mr Farrer said that Mr Philpotts had for some time accepted his son’s explanation and that all the incidents were supernatural happenings and the work of poltergeists. But following the fire and investigations by firemen and police, his son had ultimately accepted responsibility.
The youth persuaded his father to send for the police and told them that it was because he believed the blame would fall on him that he wanted to be cleared, Mr Farrer told the court. Defence counsel Mr Francis Allen said that the youth had never been guilty of anti-social behaviour outside the family group. He said he had had a desperately disrupted life until now, and had reacted violently against it.
However, Mr Allen said, there were some signs that Philpotts was coming to terms with the background that caused these offences. Recorder John Owen deferred sentence on Philpotts for six months on the condition he lived with his mother and step-father.
Stratford upon Avon Herald, 17th September 1976.