A MAN who caused serious injuries after he blew up a cash dispenser in a bungled raid has been jailed for life.

James Deeney, 50, was ordered to serve a minimum of 10 years in prison for his part in the crime at a branch of Farmfoods in Clydebank, in Dunbartonshire.

A judge told Deeney: "You showed an utterly wicked indifference to the life and limb of others."

Michael O'Grady QC said: "You chose to carry out your crime with a quite breathtaking disregard for the potential consequences of what you were about to do."

"It is clear you had no idea whatever of the power or effect of the explosive you chose to use. That is bad enough," said the judge.

He added: "But worse still it is abundantly clear you had no regard whatever for the dreadful risk this posed to entirely innocent members of the public."

The judge said ATMs were for the benefit of the public and were used at all hours.

He told Deeney: "Even at that time of the evening you simply had no way of knowing who might be in the vicinity and what might befall them because of your actions."

The judge said: "There is another factor to be considered. It is clear that in recent times attacks on ATM facilities such as this have become disturbingly common."

"They may differ in execution from this case, but they share the feature that they are invariably bold and brazen."

Judge O'Grady said; "The time has come in my view to send out the message that anyone foolhardy enough to engage in such crimes will face dire consequences."

He told Deeney at the High Court in Edinburgh: "As it happens, Parliament has recognised the gravity of using explosives by laying down a mandatory penalty for contravention of this statute; that is life imprisonment."

The judge said the only issue for him was to fix a minimum term to the life sentence, known as a punishment part, and he selected 10 years.

He told Deeney that the courts have long made it clear that premeditated and planned attack for profit on banking premises would be regarded as extremely serious.

Deeney, of Low Crescent, Clydebank, was earlier convicted of a breach of the 1883 Explosives Substances Act by unlawfully causing an explosion while acting with another on January 11 last year at the premises in Glasgow Road, Clydebank, which was likely to endanger life or cause serious damage.

A tube was inserted into the ATM and gas ignited damaging the machine and seriously injuring another man who suffered skull and brain injuries.

Deeney was also convicted of forcing open the lockfast ATM in the explosion with intent to steal.

He had denied being involved and claimed to police he had been in the area looking for his dog, but was found guilty after a trial last month.

Jurors were shown CCTV footage of a sudden blast which swept a man off his feet, leaving him unconscious.

Members of the public called emergency services and the blast victim was taken to hospital. He suffered skull and facial fractures and bleeding to the brain.

Defence counsel Niall McCluskey said Deeney's last court appearance was about 15 years ago and the present crime marked an escalation in the seriousness of his offending.

He said Deeney had been assessed as presenting a low risk of re-offending.

But the judge said he found it fascinating that "an individual who has taken an acetylene cylinder and blown up part of an ATM is assessed as a low risk".

Mr McCluskey said Deeney continued to deny the offence and as a result the author of a background report on him was unable to explain the motivation for the crime.

The judge commented: "A reasonable inference would be money was involved."