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Stewart Poirier — the serial arsonist who burned down a Yonge Street heritage building — is a dangerous criminal who must be separated from society, a Toronto court heard Friday.

His sentencing hearing featured a grim account, from both Crown and defence, of how he came to be that criminal. They described a man with the intelligence of a Grade 3 student, who spent his life shunted from one institution to the next, sexually abused by those he was expected to trust.

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“If this was a novel, it would be a tragedy, no doubt about it,” Crown attorney Mike Callaghan told the court in calling for a prison sentence of 10 to 12 years, a joint submission with the defence.

Poirier, 53, pleaded guilty last month to setting fire to the former site of the Empress hotel on Yonge Street, along with a string of other local arsons, including one at a city-owned wood chipper. He was also convicted of attempted murder after setting ablaze the Toronto Community Housing property where he once lived; Poirier told police he got “a kick” out of lighting fires, and wanted “to hurt a couple people.”