Man pleads guilty in series of arsons in Vernon, B.C.

VERNON, B.C. – A man from Vernon, B.C., has pleaded guilty to arson just as his trial was about to start.

A jury trial was set to begin on Monday for 56-year-old William Munton, instead he pleaded guilty to seven counts of arson in B.C. Supreme Court.

The plea comes after a series of deliberately set fires in Vernon in 2014.

Dan McLaughlin, a spokesman for the B.C. Prosecution Service, says one of the fires Munton admitted to starting destroyed the grandstands at a former horse racing facility, while other fires were set in two homes under construction, on a boat and in a motorhome.

No one was injured in the fires.

Munton was arrested and charged in 2016 and he returns to court on Oct. 15 to fix a date for sentencing.

(CJIB, The Canadian Press)