After being arrested Jamie Paton launched a vile tirade of abuse at the female officer who cuffed him, including spitting in the back of the police van and telling the constable to lick it up
A car was doused in petrol and set alight in broad daylight in a “revenge” attack, a court has heard. Arsonist Jamie Paton was tracked down – in part to the “distinctive way he walks” – and arrested, and then launched a vile tirade of abuse at the female officer who cuffed him, including spitting in the back of the police van and telling the constable to lick it up.
A judge at Swansea Crown Court said Paton’s behaviour had been “outrageous” and he told the defendant there are “too many people like you in the community who seem to think the law does not apply to you”. Sending the defendant to prison the judge told him the law does apply to him.
Dean Pulling, prosecuting, told the court the background to the arson was a dispute between Paton and a family in the Penlan area of Swansea over an alleged assault.
He said on November 10 last year the defendant rang two brothers in the family and issued a series of threats to them, including telling one sibling: “I will torch everything you have got”.
The court heard that at lunchtime on the following day one of the brothers got a call from a friend telling him his car – a ’24-plate Peugeot – was on fire.
The owner rushed to the location in Penlan where he had left his vehicle to find it “engulfed in flames” and firefighters already on the scene tackling the blaze.
The police were notified, and subsequent CCTV checks showed a man carrying a jerry can walking in the direction of the car.
The court heard a council worker in Heol Cadifor later reported seeing a running man carrying a jerry can. The prosecutor said the male was identified as Paton in part due to “the distinctive way he walks”.
Arrest enquiries were commenced and then, on December 20, police received information that the wanted man was at an address on Talley Road in Penlan.
Officers attended the property and located and arrested 34-year-old Paton.
The court heard that as the defendant was being put in the police van by the arresting officer he became “abusive and aggressive” and launched a tirade of homophobic abuse based on the female constable’s appearance.
Once in the back of the van Paton repeatedly spat on the floors and walls and told the officer: “You can clean it nice, you smelly little tart. Lick it off.”
Jamie Kenneth Paton, of Jeffreys Court, Penlan, Swansea, had previously pleaded guilty to arson and to criminal damage and a public order offence – the latter two offences relate to his conduct after arrest – when he appeared in the dock for sentencing.
He has 12 previous convictions for 24 offences including public disorder matters, fraud, cannabis dealing, damaging property, and drug-driving. For the latest court reports sign up to our crime newsletter here.
Andrew Evans, for Paton, said a letter written to the judge by the defendant confirmed the arson was a “revenge” attack for a perceived act carried out by a member of the family he was in dispute with.
He said his client understood his actions were “wholly unacceptable and potentially dangerous to himself and to others”.
The advocate said Paton was a self-employed groundworker and a “responsible family man” with children from a previous relationship with whom he had regular contact.
Judge Geraint Walters described the arson attack as “outrageous” and said Paton’s treatment of the officer who arrested him was “absolutely appalling”. He told the defendant: “You have an opinion of yourself as someone who the law does not apply to you. There are too many like you in the community who think the law does not apply to you. It does”
With discounts for his guilty pleas, Paton was sentenced to 25 months in prison comprising 22 months for the arson and three months for the offences committed after arrest to run consecutively. The defendant will serve no more than half that sentence in custody before being released on licence to serve the remainder in the community.
