SENTENCING STATEMENTS

On sentencing, Lord Arthurson said:

"Daniel McMillan Laponder, on 15 October 2024 at Glasgow High Court a plea of guilty was tendered on your behalf to a two charge section 76 indictment narrating a charge of wilful fire raising and a charge libelling the contravention of section 5(1)(aba) of the Firearms Act 1968, as amended.

The background circumstances of the index offending are somewhat bizarre, stemming as they appear to from a feud between the Blue Angels Motorcycle Club and the Mad Dogs Motorcycle Club, a rival gang which was set up by you after you left the Blue Angels.  That said, the crimes committed by you were of considerable gravity.  At your barge at Southbank Marina, Kirkintilloch, you kept a loaded, double barrel, break action shotgun, shortened in such a manner as to constitute a prohibited weapon in terms of section 5(1)(aba) of the 1968 Act.  This weapon was recovered by officers from your barge on 3 July 2024, as they executed a warrant pursuant to your placement at Benvue Road, Lennoxtown, Glasgow, on 8 June 2024 of an improvised explosive device, which device was in fact a viable pipe bomb, and which comprised petrol and ball bearings, under the BT Openreach van used by the father of a member of the Blue Angels. You poured accelerant over the vehicle and caused the IED to ignite, using a remote activation device.  No one was injured in the resulting fire, but the vehicle was of course damaged, and there is no libel of endangerment in the charge.

You are aged 43 and have to date accrued three groups of summary level previous convictions in this jurisdiction, each of which relates to road traffic offending.  A criminal justice social work report is now available, however, which discloses that some 16 years ago you received a custodial sentence in England for a crime of violence.  The author of the report has assessed the risk presented by you as high, but records your apparent expressed remorse and family background.

I have listened carefully to the submissions advanced this morning on your behalf in mitigation by your senior counsel, and note what has been said regarding, somewhat ironically perhaps, certain safety parameters put in place by you in respect of these events; your present family commitments and circumstances; the utility of your guilty plea; your positive reference from a former employer; the largely positive terms of the background report; your expressed remorse and your lack of analogous record.

A very substantial custodial disposal is plainly inevitable in this case. I now accordingly sentence you on this indictment as follows.  On charge two you will serve an undiscounted period of imprisonment of 5 years, that period being the mandatory minimum for an offence related to a prohibited weapon of this nature.  Consecutive to that period you will on charge one serve a period of imprisonment of 4 years, discounted from a period of 6 years due to the timing of your guilty plea.  In order to obtemper the important sentencing principle of totality, I confirm that the sentence for the charge one offence, given the nature of the weapon involved and the level of planning in which you engaged, has been materially reduced from the period which would otherwise have been selected had charge one been a stand-alone offence.  The headline period for that charge would in such circumstances have been one of 8 years.

You will accordingly serve a total period of imprisonment of 9 years. This period will be backdated to the date of your initial remand into custody in these proceedings, namely to 4 July 2024."