ABSTRACT
It should have become obvious from the preceding chapters that people set fires for reasons that are often complex and ill-understood. Sometimes, as we shall see, such persons may be adjudged to have been motivated by a degree of mental disorder. However, as I and many others have indicated elsewhere, the precise relationship between mental disorder and criminality is by no means as clear-cut as some would think. Some people’s ‘madness’ may appear to be closely associated with their criminal behaviour; in other cases the association is less clear; in yet others it would appear that a person can be both ‘mad’ and ‘bad’.1 The case of Daniel McNaghten illustrates this point. McNaghten tried to shoot Robert Peel, the British Prime Minister; in fact, he shot and fatally injured Peel’s Secretary, Drummond. At his trial, evidence was given that McNaghten was suffering from what would be described today as paranoid delusions, believing that he was the subject of a Tory conspiracy.
