Firestarter walks free

A former Stirling Council solicitor who admitted setting fire to his Gargunnock home has escaped a jail sentence.

Stirling Observer Lawyer Bruce Clayson was given a community payback order
Lawyer Bruce Clayson was given a community payback order

Donald Clayson - known as Bruce Clayson - was given a community payback order requiring him to have supervision for one year and to do 120 hours of unpaid work within six months.

Falkirk Sheriff Court heard yesterday (Thursday) how Clayson (46) and his family lived at the property for 18 years but got into financial difficulties when his wife was unable to work.

Clayson is a well-known figure in the village, and was formerly a singer in the Gargunnock Gargoyles vocal group, which specialises in medieval and renaissance music, and regularly perform at festivals across Scotland. He would appear wearing a medieval minstrel’s head dress, tabard and breeches.

The court heard Clayson took control of the family finances but mortgage arrears accumulated and the property at Arnlea, the Square, was repossessed at the beginning of September 2013.

Clayson did not tell his wife the property was repossessed, instead claiming an electrical fire which had happened in the loft made the house uninhabitable.

On October 22 at 5.15am a neighbour said her dog began barking, but she thought nothing of it.

At 7.20am Clayson’s wife Zoe left the property, where they had been staying, to take their dog for a walk.

At around the same time, two people in Gargunnock drove past the Clayson’s repossessed property and saw smoke from an upstairs window, alerted neighbours and called the fire brigade.

Fire officers found smoke billowing from an upstairs bedroom and a green petrol can lying in the hall. When firefighters tried to enter the front bedroom they found the door jammed by a bookcase or similar furniture but pushed their way in and discovered a pile of clothes and bedding were charred and smoking.

They also extinguished an area in the loftspace which was also found to have a couple of charred joists and was filled with smoke.

The accused turned up at the property at 7.50am when he was questioned about his whereabouts before that. He claimed to have been tending to his chickens and his horse.

Police noted green and brown marks on his hands. He said he had fallen.

On October 28 Clayson was arrested and taken to Stirling where he maintained he had spent the morning tending to his animals, but he eventually changed his story to admit that prior to feeding the animals he had clambered in the window at the rear of the house, gone upstairs and poured petrol over some clothes and dropped a match.


For more, see Friday's Observer