Hull man threw 'Molotov cocktail' bomb at Oxfordshire van

Armed with a knuckleduster, Gareth Dearlove had gone to her Faringdon home on June 22 intending to confront the man but instead the door was opened by his ex-girlfriend, Oxford Crown Court was told.

Sentencing, Judge Michael Gledhill KC told the 36-year-old defendant: “You were going to teach him a lesson that he would never forget.

“Fortunately, he did not go to the door and therefore did not come face-to-face with you and the violence that you were planning did not take place.”

Gareth Dearlove Picture: Thames Valley Police (Image: Thames Valley Police)

He threatened his ex-partner, leaving her so scared she was now said to suffer post-traumatic stress.

Rather than go home, drunken Dearlove retrieved a piece of linoleum from his vehicle and walked to the nearby petrol station in order to funnel fuel into container.

Armed with the Molotov cocktail, he returned to his ex’s road and lobbed the homemade petrol bomb at the windscreen of his love rival’s work van. As Dearlove left the scene, the fire spread and ended up gutting the white Transit.

Crews from Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service were on the scene very quickly after neighbours raised the alarm.

The firefighters were able to remove hazardous materials from the vehicle, but were unable to prevent the van from being written off.

 Pictures from the scene showed the soot-tarnished white van, its windows smashed and its front tyres wrecked.

Judge Gledhill told the arsonist: “I accept that you wouldn’t have known that there were other combustible items within that van.

“You weren’t to know that, but it was something that anybody nearby could have [known] that there might be things that could catch fire in that vehicle.”

The burnt-out Transit van at the scene Picture: Thames Valley Police (Image: Thames Valley Police)

Firefighters rushed to the scene and managed to remove hazardous materials from the van Picture: Thames Valley Police (Image: Thames Valley Police)

He had been asked by defence counsel Kellie Enever to impose a community order or suspended prison sentence, which would have allowed him to return to family in Hull and help look after his two children with his ex-wife.

However, the 27 month prison service handed down by Judge Gledhill on Thursday was too long to be suspended.

And the circuit judge said the revenge attack was so serious that only a spell behind bars was appropriate.

“A very, very clear message has to go out from this court that the use of fire to deliberately damage property is a very serious offence indeed that will normally be dealt with by way of immediate custody,” he told the court.

“It is very, very serious.”

Dearlove, of Roslyn Road, Hull, pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to arson and possession of an offensive weapon.