By Paul Sandle
LONDON (Reuters) – British police said on Tuesday they had arrested a 21-year-old man on suspicion of arson after counter-terrorism officers launched an investigation into three fires, including one at Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s private home.
Police were called to reports of a fire in the early hours of Monday morning at the property in Kentish Town in north London, the area that Starmer represents in parliament.
Nobody was injured but damage was caused to the property’s entrance, police said.
The man was arrested in the early hours of Tuesday on suspicion of arson with intent to endanger life in connection with the fire and two further incidents, police said.
He remains in custody, they said.
Police are investigating whether a fire at the entrance of a property in nearby Islington on Sunday and a vehicle fire in Kentish Town on Thursday are linked to the incident on Monday.
A BBC report said the Islington property was also connected to the prime minister.
Dominic Murphy, head of London’s Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command, said a key line of enquiry was whether the fires were linked as the two premises and the vehicle all have previous links to the same high-profile public figure.
“We are working at pace and continue to explore various lines of enquiry to establish the cause of the fires, and any potential motivation for these,” Murphy said, adding the investigation remained ongoing.
Starmer lived in the terraced house on a back street with his wife and two children before he moved into Number 10 Downing Street when he became prime minister last July.
His spokesperson thanked the emergency services for their work on Monday.
(Reporting by Paul Sandle; Additional reporting by Sachin Ravikumar and Catarina Demony, writing by Sarah Young and Paul Sandle; Editing by Kate Holton and Tomasz Janowski)
