Drug vendor says ‘I’m all the time laughing’ as he’s jailed for 25 years for arson plot that killed couple, 83 and 77

A ‘warped’ drug dealer who plotted an arson attack which killed two pensioners said he was ‘always laughing’ as he was jailed for life with a minimum of 25 years. 

Kevin Weetman, 34, planned the attack on George Jackson, 48, after he refused to sell drugs for him, a trial at Liverpool Crown Court heard.

But Mr Jackson’s mother Sheila Jackson, 83, and her partner, Eric Greener, 77, suffered fatal injuries in the blaze last July at their terraced house on South John Street, St Helens, Merseyside.

After Weetman was sentenced on Thursday a family member in the public gallery shouted: ‘You’re not laughing now, Weetman.’

The drug dealer replied: ‘I’m always laughing.’

‘See you rat’, said another man, to which Weetman responded: ‘Wool.’

Weetman’s criminal record dated back to a conviction for battery, the intentional or reckless application of unlawful force to another person, when he was 12. 

And when he was 15, Weetman left a police officer brain damaged after mowing him down on a scooter. 

Weetman, of Aigburth, Liverpool, and co-accused Kylie Maynard, 37, and Lee Owens, 46, were cleared of murdering Mrs Jackson and Mr Greener on Tuesday following a five-week trial.  

Weetman and Maynard, who pleaded guilty to conspiring together to supply cocaine, were convicted of manslaughter, a charge which Owens had already admitted.

The Liverpool Echo reports that, during sentencing on Thursday, High Court judge Mr Justice Jay told Weetman: ‘In your sordid and brutal way, you have been a successful drug dealer over many years. 

‘You exert your rule with fists and iron bars. You have an appalling criminal record.

‘You are a man with an entirely warped moral code. You feel no remorse for what you did. 

‘After the verdict, you smiled and laughed inappropriately in full sight of the victims’ family.

‘The issue of your intent is not straightforward. The lies you told during the trial have added to the difficulty. 

‘I infer that your intention was to burn out George Jackson as a punishment for him not doing your bidding.

‘I cannot be sure that it was your aim to cause at least serious harm. You knew that two elderly people were almost certainly in bed at the time. 

‘I have no doubt that this is an extreme case of you procuring an act which you knew had high risk of death or serious harm. 

‘Although I am not satisfied that you had murderous intent, I am sure that this is also an extreme case of an intention falling just short of that.

‘This arson was entirely your idea. You initiated Paul Smith into committing it, having brutally assaulted him. 

‘You knew that Kyle Maynard would act as your loyal subordinate in making the arrangements. 

‘I do not conclude that you anticipated that Paul Smith would recruit Lee Owens to this enterprise but, through your malevolence, you involved two others, Paul Smith and Kylie Maynard, in this wicked scheme.

‘That you were prepared to use arson as a weapon against George Jackson when, on any view, he had done you no wrong demonstrates that you are a risk to the public by virtue of committing further specified offences. 

‘These two manslaughter offences are of the highest degree of seriousness.’

He continued: ‘In my judgement, you are an extremely violent and dangerous individual.

‘No reliable assessment can be made as to the length of time that you will still be a danger to the public. 

‘It is possible that prison will soften and reform you. It is more likely that you will remain a danger for the rest of your life, at least until your old age.’

Weetman, who smiled in the dock as verdicts were returned, was described by the judge as ‘a man with an entirely warped moral code’. 

Mr Justice Jay said a letter sent to him by Weetman ahead of the sentence was ‘too late’.

He said: ‘He can’t come along now having lied to the jury in a systematic fashion and denied any involvement when it was, frankly, as plain as a pikestaff that he masterminded all of this.

‘I’m grateful for the letter but it is too late.’ 

Peter Wright KC, defending Weetman, said the drug dealer’s motivation for the attack was more likely to be the ‘instilling of terror’ than a murderous intent.

Maynard, of Everton, Liverpool, was jailed for 23 years and Owens, of no fixed address, was sentenced to 13 years and six months.

In a statement read to the court by Alex Langhorn, prosecuting, Mrs Jackson’s daughter Sharon Jackson said: ‘Mum and Eric were our world. They were our life.

‘You took their precious lives away from them. You did that.

‘You didn’t care who was in that house.’ 

Neighbours reported hearing a woman’s high-pitched screams coming from the property and seeing Mrs Jackson later shouting for help from an upstairs window. 

They also said they saw plumes of black smoke and the front door ablaze just after 12.30am on July 15. 

In a 999 call Mrs Jackson told operators the house was on fire and she couldn’t breathe.

The first fire crews arrived at around 12.40am and immediately rescued her from her bedroom upstairs. 

They found Mr Greener in a chair in the living room. Both were unconscious but breathing.

Paramedics rushed the couple to Whiston Hospital. Mr Greener died the next day followed by Mrs Jackson on July 17.

The trial heard Owens and another man, Paul Smith, 40, who has since died, travelled from Liverpool to St Helens to start the fire just after 12.30am on July 15 last year.

Mr Jackson, the intended target, had left the terraced property to go to the shop just minutes earlier. 

He returned to see it ablaze and engulfed in smoke and found his mother being carried from the burning house by firefighters. 

Mr Greener was also rescued from the blaze. 

Both died in hospital from burns and smoke inhalation. 

Owens and Smith were allegedly ‘put up’ to carry out the attack by Weetman, with Maynard’s help after they tried to trick Mr Jackson into working as a drug dealer.

The jury was told that Mr Jackson was given half an ounce of cocaine as a thank you ‘gift’ by Weetman after he helped Maynard when her drugs were robbed. 

Weetman, known as ‘Red Head’, wanted Mr Jackson to pay him for the Class A drug, worth between £400 and £700, which he had received a month before the fire.

But after Mr Jackson twice declined to work for Weetman the drug dealer started to ask for his ‘dough’ and resolved to take action to ‘prevent a loss of face’, the prosecution alleged. 

In revenge, Weetman recruited another two low-level dealers, Owens and Smith, who, in the early hours of July 15 last year, rode to Mr Jackson’s home and set it alight. 

Smith took his own life a week after the fire, the court heard. 

When Nigel Power KC, who opened the case for the prosecution at the start of the trial earlier this month, cross-examined Weetman, the drug dealer said: ‘I’m a drug dealer, not a killer. 

‘I don’t set fire to people’s houses. I don’t go to where old people live.

‘Innocent people, no. Civilians, no. People like Paul Smith, yeah. I smashed his head in with my hands and he deserved it. I don’t kill people.

‘People who deserve it, people who are in this life with me, yeah. 

‘People who say they’re gonna murder me, people who run round this city saying they’re going to stab me, shoot me, yeah.’

Mr Power suggested Weetman was using his drug dealing as a cover for his involvement in the murders, but he insisted: ‘I’m not getting framed for two murders.

‘I’m admitting what I’ve done, that’s drug dealing. I’m going to get big time for it. It’s my third time. 

‘I’ve never murdered no one before and I’ve never asked no one to light fires for me.’

The court heard he played a ‘leading role’ in a drugs line which made about £8,000 a week, while Maynard was his ‘trusted lieutenant’. 

Mr Power told the jury there was no dispute that Smith and Owens started the fire by pouring flammable liquid on the front door and igniting it.  

The court heard that, before he died, Mr Smith told his girlfriend: ‘I had to go somewhere and set a house on fire but the fella’s mum and dad were upstairs. Red Head told me to do it.’

He added that he had not killed the right man and ‘Red Head was mad at me’.