A vengeful firestarter claimed he torched a car on a Dundee street because someone had stolen from his grandmother.
Clear CCTV footage captured Kieran Hughes using a jerrycan and matches to start the dramatic blaze on Pitkerro Road in September 2024.
The 4×4 was set ablaze and rampant criminal Hughes is seen pouring accelerant onto the vehicle along with lit matches.
He has now been hit with another prison sentence after admitting wilful fireraising and breaching bail.
Hughes, 28, appeared alongside 47-year-old Paul Henderson who is awaiting sentence for setting fire to a fence.
The city’s sheriff court was told how police were driving in the Pitkerro Road area at around 1.30am when they noticed the burning car.
Fiscal depute Emma Farmer said: “Further services were contacted and the vehicle that was alight started reversing before coming to a rest at a fence.
“The nearside window was smashed and no other persons were within.
“The car was in reverse prior to being locked.”
The court was shown the CCTV footage which captured Hughes committing the offence on September 4 2024.
He also pled guilty to failing to sign on at Dundee’s police headquarters for four months as part of a bail order.
‘Unenviable record’
Hughes has an extensive criminal record and in 2022, he was jailed for causing £10,000 worth of damage at a barber shop after targeting businesses in Broughty Ferry.
“He has an unenviable record,” defence solicitor Anika Jethwa said.
“Mr Hughes explains that he had a falling-out with the son of the owner of this car because of a theft that occurred from his grandmother.
“He appreciates he should not have behaved in the manner that he did in any shape or form.”
Henderson, of Bonnethill Court, admitted setting fire to a fence on James Street on November 6 2023.
Car fires spate
The guilty pleas came just days after Darren Gibb – branded “Scotland’s dumbest criminal” – was jailed for multiple car fires in Dundee.
Sheriff Tim Niven-Smith told Hughes: “Having seen the CCTV, this was a pre-planned crime.
“You had clearly gone and purchased accelerant for the purpose of setting fire to the vehicle.
“There’s been, in Scotland, a spate of motor vehicles being set on fire this year.
“Only last week I sentenced someone to a headline sentence of three years imprisonment.
“That being connected to the supply of pernicious drugs.”
The sheriff added: “The position put forward by Ms Jethwa is slightly different in this case and it’s not altogether clear whether it’s directly linked to the supply of drugs.”
Hughes was sentenced to 22 months in prison, backdated to when he was remanded in September 2024.
Sentence was deferred on Henderson until August for a social work report to be prepared and he was released on bail.
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