Prankster’s guilt over costume fire

9:42am Tuesday 20th May 2008

A MAN who set an RAF pilot on fire while he was dressed as a sheep at a fancy dress party has avoided a jail term.

Phillip Buckingham admitted lighting a reveller's costume, made from cotton wool and pillows, at a graduation party at the Linton-on-Ouse air base, near York.

His victim, Martin Geraghty, 26, suffered life-threatening burns to 13 per cent of his body, including his face, neck, shoulders, armpits, upper arms and the back of his legs.

Teesside Crown Court heard how 24-year-old Buckingham, from Peterborough, admitted causing grievous bodily harm in relation to the incident which happened in November last year.

The court heard that the incident was a reckless assault committed as part of a "stupid, drunken prank which went very badly wrong".

Mr Geraghty was initially taken to York District Hospital, but then transferred to the specialist burns unit at Pinderfields Hospital, in Wakefield, West Yorkshire.

The fancy dress party theme was agriculture and Mr Geraghty was dressed as a sheep, his costume including a large amount of cotton wool.

The party included a tradition whereby a piano was burned, and while people were gathered round the blaze, a joke started about how inflammable the sheep costume was.

Buckingham is then said to have set it on fire using a cigarette lighter.

Judge Brian Forster gave him a 12-month jail sentence, suspended for one year, ordered him to carry out 100 hours' unpaid work and pay his victim £7,500 compensation.

Mr Geraghty was still training at the time he was burned but still graduated without delay despite his injuries, which required skin grafts.

Judge Forster said: "It is quite clear from the information available to the court that this was indeed a reckless prank committed in circumstances where you had not considered the consequences of what you were about to do."

Linton has been training pilots for 50 years and formal graduation ceremonies are held several times a year.

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