By Graham Brown

ONE OF two teenage Angus firebugs responsible for a £3.5 million school blaze has been sent back to custody by appeal judges.

Two months after Sam Wilkie was freed pending the outcome of a High Court hearing, two of Scotland’s senior judges have ordered his return to a young offenders’ institution to complete the three-year sentence handed down for his part in the destruction of Kirriemuir’s Southmuir primary.

Lords Kingarth and Philip, sitting in Edinburgh, yesterday rejected an appeal by Wilkie’s legal representatives over the 36-month term imposed at Forfar in August last year.

Wilkie, now 18, was convicted along with Connor Grewar of setting fires that took hold of the disused school in October 2006.

Their actions resulted in a blaze that caused such severe damage that the former seminary had to be demolished.

During a four-day trial at Forfar Sheriff Court last year, a jury heard admissions from the pair that various things had been set alight, but their contention was that the fires had all been put out before they left the school some hours before the blaze broke out.

The trial heard Angus Council was left with a £25,000 insurance excess bill, with the reinstatement value of the school set at £3.5 million.

Councillors subsequently voted to use the cleared site to extend Webster’s High School.

At the time of their conviction, both accused were described as coming from supportive backgrounds, and Sheriff Kevin Veal in sentencing said it was clear they had “badly let down their families.”

“I have looked at this case from every angle to see whether a proper exercise of my judicial discretion would permit this case to be disposed of without depriving the two accused of their liberty.

“I am aware that parliament has laid down that, in ordinary circumstances, sentence of deprivation of liberty should not be visited upon offenders who appear before the court as first offenders.

“However, given the huge quantum involved in this offence,

I have . . . come to the clear conclusion that the gravity of the offence, allied to the need to assure the wider community that offences of this nature are appropriately dealt with, dictates that no sentence other than immediate detention would be an appropriate disposal.”

Each accused was ordered to serve 36 months detention, with a further three months added to Wilkie’s sentence in respect of a bail aggravation after it emerged following the trial that he was awaiting sentence for taking a pick-up truck from Baldoukie Motors, near Kirriemuir, and setting fire to it in March 2006.

He was also banned from driving for a year after admitting driving without a licence or insurance and attempting to take and drive away two other vehicles.

Friends of Wilkie posted messages of support on his social networking website ahead of yesterday’s High Court hearing, and quickly followed those up with further comments once word of the unsuccessful appeal outcome spread.