Life for 'evil' killer who set fire to flat

A man was jailed for life yesterday for murdering three young people in a fire. Andrew Affleck stuffed burning paper through a letterbox to start the blaze which trapped two sisters and their friend in a flat as part of a hate campaign .

The judge, Lord Hardie, told 25-year-old Affleck his crime came into a "special category of evil", and ordered that he serve at least 27 years. Carrie Murray, 12, and her sister Anna Teraysa, 18, and their friend, Amanda Cooper, 20, were killed by the fire in Irvine, Ayrshire, in March, 2001.

Affleck, an unemployed slaughterman, was also found guilty of attempting to murder the flat's tenant Diane Docherty, 20, her daughter Ainsley MacDougall, five, and family friend Alexander Parker, 21.

Ms Docherty had suffered taunts and graffiti scrawled on her door over her relationship with a man convicted of serious sexual offences, the High Court at Kilmarnock was told.

The two-week trial heard the sisters had been staying at the flat for a sleep-over when Affleck started the early morning blaze. He confessed to his girlfriend, believing he could not be brought to trial after a year. As rumours of his involvement circulated, Affleck was approached by Kayron Murray, the dead girls' mother. When she asked him what he knew, he said: "Kayron, I never murdered your weans. No one knew Anna and her wee sister were there."

Outside court, Ms Murray described Affleck's pleas as "words which will live with me forever". Affleck, of Irvine, was cleared of two charges of breach of the peace by threatening Ms Docherty and another woman.

Lord Hardie told him: "Very occasionally, there is a crime like this which comes into a special category of evil. The horror is hard to imagine...You told Kayron Murray you didn't know her two children were in the house, but you must have known Diane Docherty and her two-year-old child were there."