Rotherham arsonists win cut in sentences

Luke Andrew Simmons and Daniel Lee Talbot set fire to cardboard outside a store in Main Street, Swallownest, but it spread inside, damaging food and other items.

In March, the two youths, both aged 18, were sentenced at Sheffield Crown Court to a year’s detention after pleading guilty to arson.

But they will be free before the end of the month after their sentences were halved to six months by Mr Justice Collins and Mr Justice Calvert-Smith at the Court of Appeal this week.

Mr Justice Collins said the pair, who had not been close friends before the fire but now share a cell, had responded well.

The court heard that Talbot, of Meadowbank Road, had been trying to get cash from an ATM near the Main Street store in the early hours in October, 2010.

When he failed, he and Simmons, of Pembroke Street, Holmes, set fire to cardboard in baskets, before leaving it to take hold.

The flames spread inside the store when a window pane was broken by the heat.

Firefighters were called and managed to prevent structural damage, but machinery, food and other goods worth around £46,000 was damaged.

Barrister Dermot Hughes, representing the pair at the hearing in London, said they both have many good points and have already suffered the worst of the lesson of being locked up.

Giving judgment, Mr Justice Collins said: “The damage was substantial and equally there is always a risk in the commission of an offence such as this.

“But, having regard to all the circumstances and having regard to what we have been told about the way in which they have behaved in prison and the effect of what they have served so far, we take the view that we can reduce the sentences.”

The judges cut the sentences to six months, but as they will serve only half of that before release on licence, they will be freed before the end of the month.

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