YIKES

Far-Right Arsonist, Who Set Himself on Fire Attempting to Burn Down Synagogue, Will Be Held in Hospital

Tristan Morgan will be held in a hospital indefinitely, police said Friday.

The far-right arsonist who set fire to an Exeter synagogue last July 21—a day commemorating the Holocaust—will be locked up indefinitely in a mental hospital, police announced Friday.

While burning the synagogue, Tristan Morgan, 52, accidentally burned his hands and forehead and singed off his hair. In court, a witness described Morgan laughing as he walked away from the building. Prosecutor Alistair Richardson described Morgan as possessing a “deep-rooted anti-Semitic belief.”

Under the United Kingdom’s Mental Health Act, Morgan was sectioned in London’s Old Bailey after the court heard he had a psychotic episode during the attack. Police Superintendent Matt Lawler described the footage, which was given to the London police, as evidence of “the level of planning, determination and intent by Morgan, whom the wider evidence clearly showed held abhorrent extreme right-wing, anti-Semitic, and white supremacist views.”