A CONVICTED arsonist who torched a woman’s car after she spurned his advances has been hauled back to court.

Conner Murray was locked up in November last year, with Liverpool Crown Court hearing his claims that voices in his head told him to do it.

But the 23-year-old has now been sentenced for assaulting another woman and damaging her property – months before the deliberate fire incident.

Murray was sentenced at Warrington Magistrates’ Court, having been found guilty of charges of assault and criminal damage following a trial.

The court heard how the defendant assaulted a woman and damaged various personal items belonging to her on November 18, 2022.

This occurred before the events of the early hours of July 8, 2023, when Murray set fire to a vehicle outside a woman’s house in Whitecross.

This was described as a ‘planned attack’, with the defendant having bought a jerry can and petrol from the Texaco garage on Lovely Lane the morning prior.

Months earlier in March, his advances had been rebuffed by the woman in question whose car he set ablaze.

Following the incident, the victim posted a picture of her burnt-out car on Facebook, to which Murray commented that ‘things would only get worse’.

After he discovered the police had been contacted, he called her a ‘grass’ and told her partner that ‘his house would be next’.

It was found that, at the time of the incident, Murray was both drunk and high, and once arrested, he called the victim a liar, saying that he had not carried out the crime.

For the charge of arson, he was sentenced to an immediate 14-month prison sentence and indefinite restraining order.

For these latest offences, magistrates sentenced Murray, formerly of Dewsbury, but now of London Road in Sandbach, to a 12-month community order, including 100 hours of unpaid work.

He was also told he must abide by a restraining order prohibiting the defendant from approaching or contacting the victim, or entering a named Warrington street, for the next 12 months.

In addition, magistrates told him he must pay a total of £464, broken down into compensation of £150, a statutory victim surcharge of £114 and court costs of £200.