“Shocking, isn’t it?” said hairdresser Jackie Shearing, gazing at the burnt-out shell of a hatchback wedged in a passageway close to the centre of Wimborne Minster. “This is such a dozy old town, nothing ever happens here.”
The day before something certainly had happened. The Dorset town awoke to find it had been caught up in a series of arson attacks, which wrecked 13 cars in the area, damaged a historic building and left residents dashing around trying to save themselves and their vehicles.
On Tuesday police carried out forensic tests on the vehicles, got on with door-to-door inquiries and tried to work out who had caused the damage and why.
The smell of burning remained in the air as residents of Wimborne, which has a magnificent minister church and was once home to Thomas Hardy, expressed bafflement and anger at what had happened.
Some thought the spread and swiftness of the attacks, which took place over three hours on the night of 14to 15 May over a three-mile route, must be the work of a gang. Others thought it the work of an individual who may have used an old railway line, the Castleman Trailway, to navigate between spots, keeping hidden in the trees.
“If it was one person, he was very organised,” said Paul Dear, who spent 20 years in the fire service. “He knew what he was doing. He was in and out.”
The hero of the hour was nurse Lisa Dodd, who had just arrived home in the early hours of Monday when she saw a Nissan Micra ablaze in the passageway. A mother and two daughters had just moved into a flat nearby and were asleep 2 metres from the blaze.
“The light seemed a bit off and when I looked out I saw the bonnet of the car on fire,” Dodd said. “I knew that there was a sleeping family in the room next to the fire and I was worried that the car would explode. I ran out to wake them up and get them out.”
The family managed to squeeze out through a gap less than half a metre wide between their door and the blazing car. “If the engine had exploded and set the door on fire there would have been no way out,” said Dodd.
“I got to them just in time. It doesn’t bear thinking about what could have happened. This isn’t just some senseless vandalism. This is something else. It has scared everybody around here. We’re worried it could happen again.”
The fire also damaged timbers in the listed building but that was the least of residents’ worries. Florist Keith Dorling dropped off flowers to Lisa’s doorstep. “As a thank you from the community,” he said. “What’s happened here is disgusting. Someone could have been killed.”
The spread-out geography of the attacks suggest they were random, local people believe. They began around three miles south (an 11-minute drive, 50-minute walk) of Wimborne in the leafy village of Broadstone in Poole, where a Ford Focus was set on fire between the tennis and golf clubs.
It was parked next to a break in the fence on the Castleman Trailway. The second attack was about 2 miles away at Oakley Hill – very close to the trailway route.
The suspected arsonist or arsonists might then have crossed the River Stour into the Wimborne area where cars were set on fire in the New Borough Road area.
Paul Russell, 55, dashed out of his flat there and quickly moved his brand-new Hyundai, which was parked beside a burning vehicle. “I grew up in Northern Ireland in the 1970s and 80s and haven’t seen anything like this since then,” he said.
One resident, who asked not to be named, said his CCTV caught an alleged suspect. “He had his jacket over his head,” he said. “He bent down next to the car. He put something under the car and then walked off down the road. It didn’t take long for whatever it was to go off.” He has given the footage to the police.
Detectives appealed for witnesses on Monday but made no comment on Tuesday, leaving people worried about what was happening and whether there was a risk of more fires.
“There are a lot of scared people around here,” said Melissa Cox, the assistant manager of the Coach and Horses pub. “A couple of regulars lost their cars. I think it’s fair to say everyone is on tenterhooks.”
