One year after a fire destroyed her garage and another consumed a nearby community centre, Carol McKinley says she hasn’t been able to shake her fear.
“I am now afraid of the dark — scared of what is out there,” she told a crowded Napanee, Ont., courtroom on Friday.
McKinley is president of the Lennox Agricultural Society, which puts on the town’s fair every summer.
In the early hours of Oct. 23, 2023, she and her husband woke to an explosion and ran outside to find their garage and vehicle ablaze.
As the couple watched the flames devour their belongings, Carol learned the community centre — also owned by the society — was burning too.
Jay Bradley, who ran a rollerskating business at the centre before his business failed, was arrested 12 days later. He pleaded guilty in July to two counts of arson and one count of criminal harassment.
On Friday, Bradley sat next to his lawyer as 10 victim impact statements were read out in court.
They described the fear, pain and sense of loss stemming from the fires and the destruction of a community centre that housed Napanee’s old arena and was referred to affectionately by some as “the Old Girl.”
‘An act of malice’
The courtroom heard from representatives of a pickleball group who used the centre and from members of the Sea Cadets who lost uniforms and equipment, among others.
Max Kaiser spoke on behalf of the agricultural society board, describing what happened as “an act of malice that was both grand and profoundly public.”
When society members learned the McKinleys had also been targeted, their nights were full of fear, wondering whether they’d be the next victim for simply volunteering to help the community, Kaiser told the court.
“The sheer thought that someone could be so careless, risking the safety of our entire community for a fleeting moment of chaos, was chilling,” said Kaiser.
Members of McKinley’s family also shared their experiences.
McKinley’s daughter Mikayla MacDonald said while their home had been a safe place, that sense of security was destroyed by the fire.
The family’s garage included a hand-made bench, a heirloom clock and a decade’s worth of business files — all lost.
McKinley’s husband George said Bradley’s “little temper tantrum has hurt a lot of people.”
‘I take full ownership’
Bradley finally addressed the court himself, speaking through tears in a rambling speech he said wasn’t pre-written but made “from the heart.”
He acknowledged the fires could have been worse, adding, “It is selfish. I take full ownership.”
But he said believes his actions weren’t “necessarily revenge.”
Asked by the judge what led him to set the fires, Bradley referred to his past success in the IT industry and the depression he fell into after he lost his job.
“For somebody that was an underdog….to get where I was by hard work, I couldn’t let it go,” he said. “Carol McKinley was a symbol.”
Jay Nelson Bradley has pleaded guilty to two counts of arson and criminal harassment. Today a judge at the Napanee, Ont. courthouse heard from victims. The CBC’s Dan Taekema reports.
Bradley’s lawyer, Jason Dickson, argued his client should spend two more years behind bars, while assistant Crown attorney Kerry Watson recommended five years, less time served.
Watson also asked that a 1953 Pontiac sedan, used by Bradley on the night of the fires, be auctioned off so the funds could go toward victims of the fires.
Dickson said Bradley felt that was an “excellent idea.”
First-time offender
Bradley is 50 and this was his first offence, as both Dickson and Justice Geoffrey Griffin noted.
“That is the mystery, J. Bradley,” Griffin said.
Griffin described the arena as a “hockey palace” and an “almost sacred” space in Napanee, pointing out that the Detroit Red Wings once played there.
“It was built by the community. It was used by the community. It was a testament to the community,” Griffin said. “You’re the man that destroyed that. For this community, that is seen as a terrible, terrible, evil act that is inexplicable and you’ll be wearing that forever.”
Bradley is expected to be sentenced on Nov. 8.