The facts date from September 28 last year. Around 6 p.m., a woman noticed the smell of smoke in her terraced house in Herdersstraat. When she walked to the front to see where the smoke was coming from, it turned out that her neighbor’s house was on fire. The fire brigade arrived quickly, but could not prevent three houses from being completely destroyed. Some adjacent buildings suffered heavy damage.
“The defendant rented a house from her step-grandmother for 200 euros, but the house was sold and she had to leave,” the prosecutor said in the Kortrijk court on Monday. “In the weeks before, the lady had told six separate people that she would set the place on fire if she couldn’t stay there. Now she states that the fire was caused accidentally by a cigarette, but that is completely unbelievable. You are lucky. saying that there were no deaths.”