Retired engineer gets 16 years over homemade bomb at Sidcup ULEZ camera

A 64-year-old man from Sidcup has been jailed for 16 years at the Old Bailey for destroying a ULEZ camera in Sidcup with a homemade explosive.

Kevin Rees, a retired electrical appliances engineer, was convicted by a jury in January. The jury decided the blast he caused was likely to put lives at risk or do serious damage to property, and it also convicted him of three counts of possessing a prohibited weapon. At his sentencing on Friday 2 October he also received three-year terms for the weapons offences, to run at the same time. Rees will be in his 70s before he can first be considered for release.

What happened in Willersley Avenue, Sidcup

Prosecutor Simon Denison KC told the court that at about 6.30pm on 6 December 2023, Rees left the device beside a camera on Willersley Avenue that was part of the ULEZ network. He lit its fuse before running off. The device was a metal cylinder packed with the black powder used in fireworks. Earlier that day the camera had already been taken down and disabled.

According to the prosecution, the force of the blast sent part of the camera box about 100 metres into a house on a nearby road. A parked car had its passenger side ripped by shrapnel, and the window frame of a child’s bedroom 25 metres away was damaged. People living nearby said they felt their houses shake. When police searched Rees’s home on 18 December 2023, they found three homemade stun guns.

Judge says chance alone prevented deaths

Sentencing him, Judge Anthony Bate said: “It was pure chance no one was killed or caused injury by this explosion.” The judge also said the offence had a “terrorist connection”. In his view, apart from Rees owning an old Jaguar that might have fallen foul of the scheme, there was no evidence of any other reason for him to oppose the cameras.

The prosecution said Rees belonged to groups that campaigned against ULEZ cameras and encouraged people to destroy them, and that he acted for the anti-ULEZ cause. For the defence, Simon Ray called the attack a wholly disproportionate reaction to a personal grievance and said the aim had been to put the camera beyond repair. He told the court Rees had been mentally unwell since his conviction and had spent time in a psychiatric unit this week.