Man who hid arson attack suspect’s body in wheelie bin jailed

A man who admitted hiding a man’s body in a wheelie bin has been jailed.

The body of Paul Smith, 40, known as Smigger, was found in the bin in Everton, Liverpool, on 22 July last year, seven days after he was believed to have started a fire at the home of Sheila Jackson, 83, and her partner Eric Greener, 77, in St Helens, Merseyside.

The couple were rescued from the blaze but died in hospital from burns and smoke inhalation.

Steven Wales, 61, was jailed for two years and four months at Liverpool Crown Court after the court heard he had found Smith’s body in his bath and moved it into the bin, which he hid behind nearby derelict houses.

Sentencing him, Judge Neil Flewitt, said: “Although the cause of his death has been established as mixed drug toxicity, the precise circumstances of his death are uncertain.

“The information available to me is entirely dependent on your account which, I have to say, raises as many questions as it answers, not least how a 61-year-old man with COPD was able to move that body from the bath and flat into a wheelie bin.”