Two teenagers have been jailed for 10 years over the Gants Hill restaurant arson that left diners with agonising, life-changing burns.
The pair, both aged 17 at the time, were handed extended sentences at the Old Bailey on Friday after a six-week trial earlier this year found them guilty of arson with intent to endanger life and possession of a bladed article.
The court heard how the teenagers stormed Indian Aroma on Woodford Avenue on 22 August last year carrying weapons resembling machetes, while eight customers were sitting down to eat.
Alongside a third person, they made their way to the back of the room and emptied canisters of petrol over the floors and tables. One of them then lit a piece of paper while holding the door “mostly shut”, setting off what was described in court as an “explosion” inside the restaurant.
The group fled in a stolen car as the blaze took hold. Six London Fire Brigade vehicles and crews were sent to the scene.
A ‘professional’ operation
Prosecutor James Dawes KC said the groundwork for the attack had been extensive and its execution chillingly efficient.
“The preparations for this attack were extensive and the execution of this attack was professional and clearly had been planned and rehearsed as each one of them had separate, well-defined roles,” he told the court.
Diners were ordered to remain in their seats and threatened with long knives and swords as petrol pooled around them.
“The offenders took the decision to set light to the pool of petrol while the customers were still seated frozen in terror, guaranteeing burns would be caused to some or all of them,” Mr Dawes said.
He told the court the peace of the eight people dining at the restaurant had been shattered.
Victims left with catastrophic burns
One woman was placed in a medically induced coma after her clothes melted to her skin. She suffered burns to 50 per cent of her total body surface area, including full-thickness burns to 45 per cent.
Her husband was seen running from the burning restaurant while still on fire. He suffered mixed-depth burns to 51 per cent of his body.
In a statement read to the court, he said: “I woke up 45 days after being burnt.”
The prosecutor said the incident had been traumatic for the couple and had changed their personal lives.
Another victim said: “What I have now is a life that has been completely upended by 30 seconds of someone else’s violence.” She told the court she had previously been an independent woman with plans, prospects and hope.
Petrol had been spread around the chairs where customers were sitting, the judge said. A claim that fuel had been poured directly over the back of one diner was, after the judge reviewed CCTV footage, “perhaps questionable”.
Judge: ‘You acted with cold blood’
Sentencing the teenagers, His Honour Judge Michael Grieve KC described the attack as a “sophisticated and professional operation” involving a “high degree” of planning.
“You were both fully aware of the almost inevitable consequences, namely to cause serious harm, up to and including death, to complete strangers,” he said, adding that the victims “have suffered agonising and life-changing injuries – and it could have been worse”.
Each teenager received an extended sentence: 10 years in custody with a further three-year extended licence period.
Judge Grieve said he had “no doubt” the pair had carried out the attack at the direction of an older and more experienced criminal who has not been identified — “but you did so with cold blood”.
What is an extended sentence?
An extended sentence combines a custodial term — in this case 10 years — with an additional licence period, here three years. Courts reach for them where an offender is judged dangerous and the public needs protection beyond an ordinary sentence, with the offender remaining under supervision — and liable to be recalled to prison — until the extended period ends.
The teenagers were convicted of arson with intent to endanger life, one of the gravest arson offences, which carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, alongside possession of a bladed article.
Defence: told the restaurant would be empty
The teenagers had denied the offences. One of them had earlier pleaded guilty to an additional charge of failing to disclose a PIN.
Mark Graffius KC, mitigating for one of the teenagers, asked the judge to take account of what he said was the ongoing exploitation of his client in the lead-up to the offence.
Nneka Akudolu KC, for the other, said her client was sorry for the injuries suffered by the victims and had been told the restaurant would be empty.
The third person who entered the restaurant with the pair was not part of the six-week trial or Friday’s sentencing hearing.
Arson cases before London courts
The Gants Hill sentencing is the latest in a string of serious arson cases to reach London’s courts — one man was jailed for 15 years after blowing up a ULEZ camera with a homemade bomb, while another man was arrested on suspicion of arson after a late-night flat fire in Kilburn.
In a separate case, a teenager was jailed for a string of machete robberies targeting Rolex watches across the capital.
