![Acting Superintendent and Relieving Commander at Central West Police District, Gerard Lawson, confirmed that an arrest took place on Tuesday in relation to the Glenroi Heights School fire. Main picture by Carla Freedman. Acting Superintendent and Relieving Commander at Central West Police District, Gerard Lawson, confirmed that an arrest took place on Tuesday in relation to the Glenroi Heights School fire. Main picture by Carla Freedman.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/YN4FA67iw2pXwXjwm2vmnJ/7db8f01c-d348-4fdf-95b7-6e8adbcdeadb.png/r0_0_1920_1079_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
A 12-year-old boy has been arrested in relation to a school fire which caused millions of dollars worth of damage.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
Speaking to media on Wednesday, Acting Superintendent and Relieving Commander at Central West Police District, Gerard Lawson, confirmed an arrest had been made the day prior, a little more than two weeks after the administration building at Glenroi Heights Public School went up in flames.
"Since then, police and detectives here at Orange have been conducting further inquiries and those inquiries have led to the arrest of a 12-year-old boy on (December 20), who will face Children's Court," he said.
"Those inquiries aren't finished yet. We're still looking for a possible co-offender and will be following up those inquiries in the next day or two."
READ ALSO:
Asked if the 12-year-old attended the school, Mr Lawson said: "Not as far as I'm aware and certainly not at that school at the moment."
In terms of a possible co-offender, Mr Lawson added that police hoped to have investigations wrapped up by the end of the week.
"We're still open-minded about those things, but there is one other person we want to speak to," he said.
"In the next day or two we should be able to tidy that up."
Questioned about the length of time it took to make an arrest since the fire too place on December 5, Mr Lawson said it had been an "exhaustive investigation."
"CCTV has been a feature of the investigation and it's taken us a couple days to catch up with the young man who we thought might be involved and get to a place where we could conduct an interview," he added.
![Acting Superintendent and Relieving Commander at Central West Police District, Gerard Lawson, spoke to media on Wednesday. Picture by Carla Freedman. Acting Superintendent and Relieving Commander at Central West Police District, Gerard Lawson, spoke to media on Wednesday. Picture by Carla Freedman.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/YN4FA67iw2pXwXjwm2vmnJ/36c4fc4c-f657-4246-b85d-a48e510ab084.JPG/r0_0_8256_5504_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
"I would congratulate the detectives. They didn't let the ball fall, they kept pursuing every opportunity to gather evidence and result in an arrest."
Mr Lawson also revealed the monetary figure attached to the amount of damaged caused to the school was in the vicinity of $3million.
The chief inspector added that it was still unknown how exactly the fire was started, but that it occurred "not long before" emergency services arrived at the scene just before 11pm that night.
"At this stage, we don't really know too much about it other than it was a careless and reckless act," he added.
The age of the boy was also addressed, with youth crime having been a sore subject for residents of Orange throughout 2022.
"I won't make too much comment about the age, that's a thing for the courts to decide, but he will be facing the Children's Court and there are a whole range of options available to the Children's Court around what the sentence might look like," Mr Lawson said.
"That's jumping ahead of the game a little bit. Certainly one of the things we would be looking at is what might be appropriate diversions for him.
"Central West Police District takes all crime seriously and certainly there is a feature of youth crime involved in our current profile. We engage with other services and other organisations to try and tackle that. It's better to try and prevent the crime than come along afterward and try to rehabilitate somebody."
Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content:
- Bookmark
- Make sure you are signed up for our breaking and regular headlines newsletters
- Follow us on Twitter
- Follow us on Instagram
- Follow us on Google News