Two men jailed for arson attacks on property linked to Keir Starmer

Roman Lavrynovych and Stanislav Carpiuc have been jailed at the Old Bailey for seven and two years respectively for arson attacks on property connected to Keir Starmer.

Lavrynovych, 22, from Ukraine, and Carpiuc, 27, from Romania, were found guilty on Monday of conspiring to commit arson on a car and two properties linked to the prime minister.

During the trial, the jury heard that an anonymous Russian-speaking figure named El Money had recruited Lavrynovych and Carpiuc on Telegram. The contact offered Lavrynovych payment to set the fires, record them and get them on the news.

On Monday, Lavrynovych was also convicted of damaging two properties by fire, being reckless as to whether life was endangered. Another Ukrainian man, Petro Pochynok, 35, was acquitted.

On 8 May 2025, a Toyota Rav4, once owned by Starmer, was set ablaze. A second fire was set on 11 May, at the front door of a property in north London that Starmer had previously managed. In the early hours of 12 May, a fire broke out at Starmer’s former home in Kentish Town, where his sister-in-law and her family were then living.

In a televised sentencing at the Old Bailey, Mr Justice Garnham directed most of his remarks at Lavrynovych. “You agreed to carry out this mindless piece of arson for money. You were not a man of great principle and you were easily bought,” he said.

He rejected Lavrynovych’s claim that he had not known the houses he set on fire were occupied. “You only had to look around the street to realise these premises in this street were residential. But you really did not care about that,” the judge said, describing him as “utterly reckless about the risk you were creating”.

He accepted that neither man had instigated the attacks, but described Lavrynovych as a useful idiot who had acted without question on the instructions of El Money. “You were used by El to advance some agenda or cause of which you knew nothing.

“You were essentially acting as a pawn for some unknown cause and putting the lives of people asleep in their beds at risk as a result.”

Both men responded without emotion when their sentences were read out, staring straight ahead from the dock.

In mitigation for Lavrynovych, his lawyer, James Scobie KC, described him as “utterly naive, utterly gullible, unthinking” and a “complete and utter footsoldier”.

“How worrying that is for us all that there are individuals like this who are fodder for this type of infiltration,” he said.

Scobie told the court about the shame felt by Lavrynovych’s family in Ukraine for his actions. “This is national. He’s got to go back to that one day. He’s going back to a country who is at war and, unwittingly or otherwise, he hasn’t been on their side. That is very real.”

Carpiuc’s barrister, Shahid Rashid, said his client had always been “the money man”.

He told the court: “His function was to realise the cryptocurrency. It is also important he was not going to get anything out of it. His motivation was helping a friend out who needed money desperately for his father’s medical treatment.”