A drug dealer dragged a woman with gasoline from a bottle of Lucozade before it caught fire.
James McGowan threatened to set fire to Kelly Quinn when she asked for drugs while she was already in debt. Then the 24-year-old thug hit her in the head with an iron bar.
Prosecutors said contradictory accounts of what happened next meant they could not be sure if McGowan set her on fire. But after weeks in a coma, she remembered waking up covered in bandages like an Egyptian “mummy.”
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Emergency services were called to the Derby Road, Southport flats around 8:40 p.m. Christmas Day 2019. Mrs. Quinn, then 38, was taken to Whiston Hospital.
In January 2020, three men were arrested on suspicion of attempted murder. The men, aged 35, 40 and 49, were later released without charge.
Liverpool Crown Court heard Ms Quinn speak to police that February. Prosecutor Graham Pickavance said: “Kelly Quinn was a drug addict. She was with her friend and needed to ‘point’.”
She said Ms. Quinn often received drugs from a “supplier” operating from a second-floor apartment. That night she went to the apartment and was let in.
Mr Pickavance said: “She received a phone call from her provider, whom she knew as ‘P.’ This, according to the Crown, is defendant McGowan.
He said: “McGowan told him that as he owed her money for the drugs he had already had, that he could have no more and that if he did not leave the apartment, he would come and ‘ignite’ her.”
McGowan and his girlfriend Holly McCarthy arrived. Pickavance said McGowan had a bottle of Lucozade that shook Mrs. Quinn, who got wet and smelled of gasoline.
James McGowan, 24
McGowan hit him in the head and fell to the ground. He also recalled that McCarthy “damaged it.”
Mr Pickavance said: “Then he remembered being at the top of the stairs and on fire. The last face he saw before he was on fire was McGowan.”
Mrs. Quinn called for help, then went downstairs trying to “disappear.” He suffered 10-12% burns to his face, neck, left arm and hands.
Angela Curry and her boyfriend Simon Bridge were on their floor and heard bangs. A man who smelled of gasoline knocked on his door, entered, and put a metal stick in his bedroom. Mr. Pickavance said he told them, “I’ll put it in there, if you say anything, the same thing will happen to you.”
Mrs. Curry said she asked him what was going on, but he left. Shortly afterwards, the couple said Mrs. Quinn arrived, who was “wet” and smelled of gasoline.
She was with another man. They both ordered a cigarette and left after being given tobacco and cigarette papers.
However, Pickavance said Ms. Quinn told police, “What confuses me is when you came to the hospital and said I went down for a cigarette … I remember doing it, but I don’t think so. that it was full of gasoline. then. “
About 10 minutes later, the couple heard screams and the fire alarm sounded. Mr. Bridge found Mrs. Quinn on the hallway floor.
The prosecutor said, “He had toilet paper around, which was on fire. He turned it off. He saw that his clothes were smoking and his bra was smoking.”
The two witnesses identified McGowan as the man with the stick, and Ms. Quinn said he was the person who spilled gasoline on her. The Lucozade bottle was found with gasoline and its fingerprint.
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When she was arrested and interviewed, McGowan denied knowing or attacking Mrs. Quinn. He claimed it was a wrong identity.
He was charged with administering a harmful substance with the intent to endanger life or cause serious bodily harm. Prior to a trial, prosecutors accepted a conviction for the misdemeanor for doing so with intent to injure, injure or disturb.
Pickavance said: “The decision was made because given the evidence of the two witnesses who contradicted Kelly Quinn’s evidence, it was not possible to be sure that McGowan had set Kelly Quinn on fire.” He said Mr. Bridge told police immediately before he found the victim on fire, he heard her shout “Minnow, Minnow, stop it” and “What are you doing?”
Mr Pickavance said: “Minnow was the guy who had come to your door asking for a cigarette when Kelly Quinn did. McGowan was known as ‘P.’
McGowan, of Openshaw Drive, Blackburn, also admitted assault, which caused actual bodily harm – he opened his head with the iron bar – and breached his bail. He was due to be convicted in February, but escaped for three months until his arrest last week.
The woman suffered severe burns (Image: UGCTMY)
Michael Bagley, on defense, said his client’s guilt was “the best way to show remorse.” He said McGowan only intended to “scare” his victim and not “the terrible consequences.”
He said McGowan’s parents were drug addicts, his mother died when he was seven and they took care of him, before his aunt raised him. He was convicted of aggravated assault when he was young.
Bagley said he earned grades in plaster and paint, but that he “got involved with drugs” through his use. He said McGowan “was effectively playing the role of executor in relation to what appeared to be trivial debts.”
Bagley said McGowan had stayed out of trouble, worked and had a baby. His sentence was skipped in a “loss of nerve” because he feared imprisonment.
Judge Anil Murray said McGowan intended to “terrorize” Ms Quinn, a “vulnerable” person “addicted to class A drugs”. He said, “She got her drugs from you. You weren’t in an equal relationship.”
He said McGowan poured gasoline at the victim, which at some point ignited. However, he said the prosecutor’s opinion was “it cannot be said with certainty that he was on fire.”
Judge Murray said the victim suffered a lung collapse and required skin grafts. He said, “She remembers waking up in the hospital like a mummy.”
He told McGowan, “Your intent was to scare your victim into putting her online.” Asked for two years and 10 months in prison, the judge said, “I agree that you did not set him on fire, but you must have noticed that pouring gasoline on someone who smokes was seriously foreseeable: there was a risk of suffered serious damage and that happened. “
McCarthy, of Openshaw Drive, Blackburn, admitted common assault. In February, he was given an 18-month community order, with a 15-day rehabilitation activity requirement and a 28-day curfew.
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