Botched ATM gas blast raider wins appeal over life sentence after Clydebank explosion blew up accomplice

An ATM raider who , leaving him with brain damage, has had his life sentence quashed.

James Deeney, 50, was told he would do life with a minimum of 10 years.

He had been convicted under the 1883 Explosives Act of blowing up the ATM at Farmfoods in his home town of Clydebank , near Glasgow.

James Deeney, pictured, was ordered to serve a minimum of 10 years in prison for his part in the raid (Spindrift)

But in his appeal he argued that the sentencing judge was wrong to rule that life was mandatory for the offence and that a 10-year minimum was excessive.

His defence counsel Niall McCluskey told the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh that Deeney had a limited record and had not been in trouble for 15 years prior to the blast.

Lord Turnbull said the appeal court accepted that the sentencing judge had been under “a misapprehension” over the issue of a mandatory life term.

He said the sentence should be quashed and substituted a seven-year jail term.

However, he said Deeney had displayed “a breathtaking disregard for public safety.”