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1 2-year sentence for Noah-East arsonist
Page 6
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A GANGLAND ENFORCER who was involved with a series of massive truck and haulage depot fires across the North-East has been jailed for 12 years.
When Thomas Mackell appeared at Newcastle Crown Court last month ,he was convicted of causing at least £5m worth of damage at six firms (CM 8 March).But during the trial,police witnesses said total losses including lost earnings and knock-on effects would be closer to £18m.
At a sentencing hearing on 12 April Judge Esmond Faulks told Mackell, of St John's Court, Newcastle, that he had "played a leading role as the manufacturer of material used to start all the fires".
Detectives investigated a large number of arson attacks on haulage sites between the late 1990s and 2002, most of which remain unsolved. Mackell was charged with involvement in only six attacks.
The breakthrough came when Mackell was arrested for shooting a Newcastle man.Although he was acquitted of conspiring to cause grievous bodily harm,his DNA was matched to a bottle used to carry petrol to one of the arson attacks.
Mackell's cousin, John Loxley, also of St John's Court, Newcastle, was found guilty of involvement in one of the fires; he was jailed for three years.
Detective Chief Inspector Winton Keenan was head of Operation Chariot, the hunt for the arsonists."This was the longestrunning and geographically most diverse inquiry Northumbria Police has ever undertaken," he says. "Serious organised crime played a part in these fires but we will never know to what extent and for what reason."