London: A court in London has sentenced two teenagers to 10 Years of imprisonment each for an arson attack on an Indian restaurant that left six persons injured.
The Old Bailey court heard last week that the 17-year olds were armed with machetes when they went into Indian Aroma in Gants Hill in August 2025. They held the doors shut while a third person poured fuel around the room and set it alight.
“You were both fully aware of the almost inevitable consequences, namely to cause serious harm, up to and including death, to complete strangers,” Judge Michael Grieve told the boys during a sentencing hearing on Friday, PTI reported.
They “have suffered agonising and life-changing injuries – and it could have been worse,” Justice Grieve said, referring to the victims, accusing the teens of carrying out the attack in “cold blood”.
Each of the boys, were given an extended sentence consisting of 10 years in custody and a further three-year extended period under strict license conditions.
The teenagers entered the restaurant with a third person while eight customers were eating. The third person went to the back of the restaurant and poured petrol over the floor and tables. After the attack, the group fled in a stolen car, the Court was told.
“The preparations for this attack were extensive and the execution of this attack was professional and clearly had been planned and rehearsed as each one of them had separate, well-defined roles,” prosecutor James Dawes said, according to a court report in the ‘Ilford Recorder’.
The customers had been ordered to remain in their seats and threatened with long knives and swords, he said.
“The offenders took the decision to set light to the pool of petrol while the customers were still seated frozen in terror, guaranteeing burns would be caused to some or all of them,” Dawes added.
One woman was placed in a medically induced coma after her clothes melted to her skin. She suffered burns to 50 per cent of her total body surface area, including full-thickness burns to 45 per cent.
Her husband was seen running from the restaurant while on fire. He suffered mixed depth burns to 51 per cent of his total body surface area.
While the two accused had denied the offences, their third accomplice was not part of the trial or last week’s sentencing hearing at this stage.
