Manager jailed for burning down workplace to avoid getting sack

Published on Thursday 9 July 2009 22:00

A TYRE centre manager who started a huge blaze at his work because he feared he would be fired has been jailed for 28 months.

Colin McReadie, 22, drank 20 pints of lager before letting himself into the Budget Tyre Auto Centre in Edinburgh and setting fire to a rack of tyres using a gas torch. He then locked the building and went back to the pub, leaving the fire to cause 700,000 of damage.

Father-of-two McReadie, of Northfield Circus, Edinburgh, pled guilty to wilful fireraising at Edinburgh Sheriff Court last month. Sentencing him yesterday, Sheriff Neil Mackinnon said the danger posed to the public meant McReadie had to be jailed.

"Somehow the idea of destroying the stock at your workplace by fire arose and those you regarded as friends encouraged you in this enterprise," said the sheriff.

"Due to the seriousness of this matter, only a custodial disposal is appropriate."

McReadie, a soldier with the Territorial Army, had been working at the centre for three months and had been promoted to branch manager just two weeks before the incident last September.

But there had been "a number of problems" with his work, and he was asked to attend a meeting with bosses to discuss his future.

The night before the meeting, on 29 September, McReadie called friends and asked them to pick him up from a pub at 10pm and drive him to the tyre centre.

When they arrived at the tyre centre, McReadie used his key fob to deactivate the alarm and went inside.

"Once inside, he made his way over to a rack of tyres within the building and used a gas torch to set those tyres on fire," said fiscal depute Aidan Higgins, prosecuting.

The prosecutor said firefighters arrived to find the tyre centre "engulfed" in flames, and the glass doors blown out.

Suspicion fell on McReadie after police viewed CCTV footage from the pub.

"Immediately before the commission of the offence, McReadie feared that he was to be sacked imminently," said Mr Higgins.

Mr Higgins said there had been "real danger" of an explosion at the premises and told how firefighters had to pull back for fear the building would collapse.

He said the total damage caused to the building, machinery and stock was 701,626, and the premises were "effectively destroyed".

The four other employees working at the tyre centre were relocated to other premises in the city.

McReadie's solicitor, Rhona McLeod, said he faced having to leave the TA if he was jailed, and would miss out on going to Afghanistan with the troops later this year.

She said McReadie, who has children aged four and two, had been working 70 to 80 hours a week at the tyre centre and had been "stressed" by his responsibilities.

He had turned to drink and had been in the pub for nine hours before starting the fire.

"He may have been promoted beyond his abilities and struggled very hard to do it," said Ms McLeod.

"He believed that he was facing the sack – he had heard this from his line manager – and thought that this was grossly unfair.

"It wasn't something he thinks he would ever have done and acted upon if there hadn't been other people around, pushing him and suggesting things he could do," she added.

"He just made a calamitous decision."

Sheriff Mackinnon said he had reduced the sentence from 42 months because McReadie pled guilty at the first opportunity.