Teenager who started fire on 10A Stagecoach bus jailed

Logan Pritchard, now 18, was sent to a young offenders’ institute at Liverpool Crown Court after he pleaded guilty to arson while reckless as to whether life would be endangered.

Judge Robert Trevor-Jones described the act, in which Pritchard, who at the back of the top deck set fire to a seat in front of him as one of “dangerous and reckless stupidity”.

Prosecuting, Mike Stephenson told the court Pritchard, of Hillside Avenue, Dentons Green got on to the 10A Stagecoach bus on January 28 last year on Bridge Street, St Helens.

CCTV footage was played of the incident which showed plumes of smoke filling the top deck of the bus minutes after Pritchard had started the fire and then got off the vehicle.

READ > Parents warned of 'suspicious car' near schools

At around 11.15am, the bus came to a stop on Warrington Road, Prescot due to the blaze.

Mr Stephenson said a student “was feeling unwell and sent home from college and slept most of the time (on the bus) with his eye shut and he recalled hearing a repeated clicking” of a cigarette lighter.

“A plume of smoke could be observed rising from the seat immediately where he (Pritchard) had been sitting.

“A passenger saw the smoke and alerted the driver. The bus stopped and emergency services were sent.”

Damage caused to the bus by the fire

There were 11 people who had to be evacuated from the bus, he added, including some “elderly”.

The student, who had been asleep on the upper deck near to where the fire started, “was woken by the cries of the driver”.

Mr Stephenson added: “The bus examiner described the whole of the deck as having smoke damage”. Costs of the damage totalled £16,325, with costs to the company amounting to more than £30,000.

“The use of buses is reduced by as much as 11 and a half per cent because of perceptions of the risk of criminal incidents”, Mr Stephenson said.

“There have been previous fires in a vehicle where both decks have been gutted in the space of seven minutes.”

Mr Stephenson said that in a victim impact statement, the driver has been “suffering from shock and she does have flashbacks to what happened.”

Meanwhile, the student, who had been sleeping, has been left “anxious” by the incident and “will make sure to sit near an exit”.

He also suffered a “sore chest from smoke inhalation”.

Damage caused to the bus by the fire

Pritchard attended interview by police after a CCTV appeal had been circulated in the media, including the Star.

Defending, Jeremy Hawthorn, said Pritchard, who was 17 at the time of the incident, “accepts this is a very serious matter” and said it was a case of “a teenager messing around”.

Damage caused to the bus by the fire

However, judge Trevor-Jones sentenced Pritchard to two years and nine months in a young offenders’ institute.

The teenager was also under investigation for a matter of drug driving at the time of the incident, and was described as having a history of cannabis use.

The judge said: “It has been described as an act of youthful stupidity. That may be so, but it was dangerous and reckless stupidity and it is a clear indication of the dangers which exist when people mess around with fire.”

After the fire, Detective Inspector Tony O’Brien said: “Thankfully the driver and passengers were unharmed but the sheer recklessness of starting a fire within a moving vehicle with multiple passengers is beyond belief.”