Starmer arson accused told friend plan was ‘stupid’, court told

Emily Pennink, Press Association Old Bailey Correspondent

A hotel worker has told jurors how he refused to be involved in a friend’s “stupid” plan to set fire to a car linked to the Prime Minister, for money.

Romanian Stanislav Carpiuc, 27, and Ukrainians Roman Lavrynovych, 22, and Petro Pochynok, 35, are on trial over a series of arson attacks allegedly on the orders of a shadowy contact called El Money.

In the early hours of May 8 last year, a Toyota Rav4 car which once belonged to Sir Keir Starmer was burnt out in Kentish Town.

The blaze was only treated as suspicious after two more attacks on houses in north London connected to the Prime Minister days later.

Giving evidence on Wednesday, Carpiuc said Lavrynovych had begged him to film the first attack but he thought it was “stupid” and refused.

He said: “My reaction was immediate. I told him that he should stop thinking about that and obviously shouldn’t do something like that.

“Generally speaking when he asked me to make a video I told him no. He told me he needed the money.

“Then he switched off the subject and told me he wasn’t going to set fire to the car, he was going to break the window of the car and he asked me – and he did it on many occasions – if I would make a video of him doing that.”

Asked how he responded to that idea, he said: “The same that I responded to his proposal to set fire to the car because it was stupid.

“He was asking me, begging me, to help me to make this video.

“I rejected his idea but I also explained to him that walking around in the streets of the city setting fire to cars is a very serious crime.

“Then he assured me that he would not be setting fire to the car, he would only break the window, and he still needed my help to make the video.

“I rejected him, I didn’t want to have anything to do with this, I told him I don’t want to go there, I don’t want to make a video and you shouldn’t be doing that either.”

Carpiuc told jurors that he knew Lavrynovych was to be paid by El Money but he did not know who he was.

Lavrynovych had wanted the money to pay for his father’s medical treatment, he said.

Previously, Lavrynovych has admitted the arson attacks but claimed he had been threatened by El Money, who had demanded the attacks were filmed and were on the news.

Carpiuc, from Romford, east London, Lavrynovych, from Sydenham, south London, and Pochynok, of Islington, north London, deny conspiracy to damage property.

Lavrynovych denies damaging two properties by fire with intent to endanger life or being reckless as to whether life was endangered.

The Old Bailey trial continues.