A 'mindless' crook who started a fire that ravaged a famous butchers later took an axe to a corner shop.
Heroin addict Christopher Kelly set a 1,000 litre oil drum in an alleyway alight "for no rhyme or reason", leaving Edge and Son Butchers with a £65,000 bill. The 36-year-old also risked the lives of people living in two storeys of flats above the historic shop, which has served customers across Wirral since 1844.
Jailing Kelly for four years and five months, a judge said only the "sheer good fortune" of two passing police officers smelling smoke had prevented an inferno from engulfing the building in New Ferry, one night in October 2019. Yet just six months after the 36-year-old sparked that fire, he again terrified residents when he was spotted carrying an axe at a newsagents in Birkenhead.
