Man is jailed for life after blowing up cash machine
A MAN who caused serious injuries after he blew up a cash dispenser in a bungled raid was jailed for life.
James Deeney, 50, was ordered to serve a minimum of 10 years in prison for his part in the crime at a branch of Farmfoods in Clydebank, in Dunbartonshire.
A judge told Deeney: “You showed an utterly wicked indifference to the life and limb of others.”
Michael O’Grady QC said: “You chose to carry out your crime with a quite breathtaking disregard for the potential consequences of what you were about to do.”
“It is clear you had no idea whatever of the power or effect of the explosive you chose to use. That is bad enough,” said the judge.
The judge said ATMs were for the benefit of the public and were used at all hours.
He told Deeney: “Even at that time of the evening you simply had no way of knowing who might be in the vicinity and what might befall them because of your actions.”
Judge O’Grady said: “The time has come in my view to send out the message that anyone foolhardy enough to engage in such crimes will face dire consequences.”
He told Deeney at the High Court in Edinburgh: “As it happens, Parliament has recognised the gravity of using explosives by laying down a mandatory penalty for contravention of this statute; life imprisonment.”
The judge said the only issue for him was to fix a minimum term to the life sentence, known as a punishment part, and he selected 10 years. Deeney, of Low Crescent, Clydebank, was earlier convicted of a breach of the 1883 Explosives Substances Act by unlawfully causing an explosion while acting with another on January 11 last year at the premises in Glasgow Road, Clydebank, which was likely to endanger life or cause serious damage.
A tube was inserted into the ATM and gas ignited damaging the machine and seriously injuring another man.Deeney was also convicted of forcing open the lockfast ATM in the explosion with intent to steal.