The Press and Journal (Inverness, Highlands, and Islands)
Man on trial over alleged murder bid of 11 people
A man has gone on trial charged with 11 counts of attempted murder after allegedly setting fire to a Highland holiday home with sleeping families locked inside.
Kieran Ridley is accused of trying to kill the group which included his mother Ann, his brother Duncan and other relatives – by pouring petrol on the kitchen floor and opening the cooker gas valves.
The occupants listed on the indictment at the High Court in Livingston include four children.
Ridley, 32, from Worcester in the West Midlands, is accused of starting a fire by setting light to a refuse bin in the kitchen so that the flames spread throughout the house exposing them to the effects of the blaze.
He is alleged to have locked all the external doors and windows and removing the house keys before leaving the house at Mallaig Mhor, Mallaig, on October 27 last year.
Ridley, currently a prisoner at Inverness, is charged with assaulting them to the danger of their lives and attempting to murder them.
It was reported at the time that all 11 occupants of the house escaped without suffering serious injury.
At the time of the fire, a local said: “The house is all on its own, away down Loch Nevis and out of sight apart from the sea when you take a boat down to Knoydart.
“It is reached by a very narrow and dangerous potholed track, little wider than a path.
“You cannot afford to go off the track, even a little, because there is an almost sheer drop of several hundred feet into the sea-loch, Loch Nevis.”
The fire was contained to the inside of the house and the only evidence of it afterwards was the smokeblackened kitchen window.
“It is reached by a very narrow and dangerous potholed track”