A terrifying attacker who has tried to burn two victims alive was told by a judge yesterday that he was facing a possible life sentence.
Depressive Mark Miller, 38, from East Cleveland, targeted his ex-wife and her father after he was given a court order banning him from contacting her or approaching within 200 metres of her home.
Back in 2004 he had poured petrol on his wife Emma’s bed while she was in it and he set it alight, but luckily she woke up and she escaped.
Miller was later jailed for 30 months for reckless arson and after his release he was given the orders to protect her.
But on June 2 this year he was caught pouring a litre bottle of barbecue fuel through the letterbox of her home in Berkeley Drive, Guisborough.
Her father Peter Ingledew drove up at that moment with the Miller’s three-year-old son in the back of his car.
Miller ran at his ex father-in-law and he poured the accelerant over him and he tried to set fire to him with a cigarette lighter but he failed.
Prosecutor Sean Dryden told Teesside Crown Court: “The Crown’s view is that this man is dangerous”.
Miller’s defence legal team had commissioned a report on him from a top forensic psychiatrist.
His counsel Graham Silvester said: “From reading that report he is suffering from an illness of a depressive nature and this behaviour comes out of that.”
Miller was brought from prison to face sentence but Judge Michael Taylor ordered a second psychiatric report on him.
The judge told him: “You seem to be a very dangerous man and I want some more information.
“It is in my mind to consider a sentence of life imprisonment in your case because of the danger that you pose, but it would be unfair without a second psychiatric report.”
The judge added: “I am very troubled by it, approaching a house where his partner lives with fluid in the circumstances that he did, and then moving back to 2004, causes me very grave concern.”
Miller, of Barnaby Place, Guisborough, pleaded guilty to attempted grievous bodily harm with intent to cause grievous bodily harm to Mr Ingledew, breaching a non-molestation order and acting in breach of a non-molestation order.
The judge adjourned sentence and Miller’s custody was extended. He will be sentenced next month or in the New Year.
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