By Alesha Capone and Ewen McRae
An arsonist who caused more than 431,000 square metres of grassland in Melbourne’s north and west to go up in flames, has been denied permission to appeal his prison sentence.
Mark Ganon, 41, faced the Supreme Court earlier this month requesting the right to appeal.
The court heard that between January 4 to 14 last year, Ganon started between 20 to 30 fires.
Within the first five days of his offending, Ganon lit fires in Mount Ridley, Donnybrook, Keilor North, Calder Park and Sunshine West.
On January 10, he lit five fires in Keilor, Laverton North and Sunshine West.
The blaze in Laverton North burned 161,874 square metres of grassland.
On January 13, Ganon lit fires in Sunshine West and Keilor Downs that burned more than 60,000 square metres of grassland.
The next day, Ganon started fires in Sunshine West, Cairnlea and Keilor Downs, the latter in grassland behind the Keilor Downs police station.
The court heard Ganon started the fires by attaching weights to lit sparklers he threw from his vehicle.
Police later observed Ganon driving a vehicle, with stolen registration plates. CCTV footage had identified a similar vehicle as being involved in the fires.
Gannon was arrested on January 16 and found to be in possession of a small quantity of methylamphetamine.
He faced the County Court last year, where he pleaded guilty to six charges of intentionally causing a bushfire, possessing a drug of dependence, handling stolen goods, committing an indictable offence while on bail, resisting an emergency worker, unlicensed driving and using an unregistered motor vehicle.
In September last year, he was sentenced to five years in prison, with a non-parole period of three years and four months.
During the request to appeal the sentence the Supreme Court heard Ganon had a number of prior convictions dating back to 1993, but this was the first time he had been convicted of arson-related offences.
In responding to Ganon’s appeal, Supreme Court Justices David Beach and Phillip Priest said that although no one was injured as a result of Ganon’s actions, some of the fires he started burned close to residential properties and caused traffic delays on freeways.
“The applicant’s complaints are totally devoid of merit,” they said.
“His offending involved multiple attempts to light multiple fires. The damage he caused was not insignificant. The potential for far greater damage, injury or loss of life was high.”
They said that the sentence was not manifestly excessive, and that a longer sentence could easily be argued.
“Far from being wholly outside the range of sentencing options available to the judge, the sentences and orders for cumulation imposed by the judge were, if anything, lenient,” they said.
