A drug dealer has been sentenced to 14 years in jail for causing an explosion while making cannabis gummy sweets which killed a seven-year-old boy sleeping in the flat above.
Reece Galbraith and his friend Jason ‘Jay’ Laws were using a Newcastle flat as a drugs lab when a blast ripped through the building in the early hours of 16 October last year.
The explosion killed Laws and schoolboy Archie York.
Galbraith, of Rectory Road, Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, pleaded guilty to two counts of manslaughter as well as possessing and supplying cannabis, at a hearing last month.
He was sentenced to 14 years in custody at Newcastle Crown Court on Wednesday (14 May).
‘You killed my son’
Archie’s mother, Katherine Errington, shouted “you killed my son” at Galbraith as she read her victim impact statement in court.
She sobbed as she told the defendant: “You brought gas canisters into a building where families lived. You ran a drugs operation under the floor where my children slept.
“You took risks for profit and didn’t care who got hurt. You killed my son.”
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