A man who subjected his partner to “unimaginable” physical injuries when he doused her with petrol and set her on fire – leading to her death 21 years later – has been jailed.
Steven Craig, 58, was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 15 years for inflicting horrendous injuries on Jacqueline Kirk in a car park in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, in April 1998.
Reading from Kirk’s witness statement describing her relationship with her killer, the judge said Craig would watch the film Reservoir Dogs with a “constant grin” and enjoyed seeing the violent scenes depicted in it.
The judge described the attack in April 1998, in which Craig took Kirk on a road trip as a “ruse” to kill her. The court heard how Craig had stopped at a petrol station and filled a coke bottle with petrol. He then drove to a car park, where he told Kirk to bend down and poured the petrol over her head and neck.
“Jackie had petrol on her head and eyes and hands,” the judge said. “You offered her a cigarette, torturing her that it may be her last, before you lit the lighter and saw her face go up in flames.”
Kirk screamed for help, but Craig told her to stay away from him, the court heard, and did not call for help as her arms, head and face continued to burn.
The judge added: “There is no doubt you planned to partake in a monstrous and gratuitous attack on Jackie. Your conduct was sadistic from the build-up of the attack to when you doused her head and neck in petrol. The level of sadism, it was so callous and so brutal.”
When first responders arrived, Kirk’s teeth and hair were blackened by the flames, and her skin was burnt showing the pink of her flesh. The pictures were too devastating to show the jury, the judge said.
In a victim impact statement read out in court, Kirk’s younger child, Sonna, recalled her experience at 13 years old of seeing her mother following the attack.
“She had a very skinny body, hardly any hair and a patchy face. She had tight skin on her face, no lips, and just a slit for a mouth. She had no nostrils, and the scar tissue that pulled tight across her face was pulling her bottom eyelids down. She looked like an alien,” she said.
She added that she had spent the remainder of her teenage years worrying about her mum’s condition, but was grateful for the years she got to spend with her.
“I missed having a mum that could care for me. I missed having a mum that I would do anything with. She couldn’t go swimming, and the fear of falling in the water and drowning due to the [tracheostomy] meant that we couldn’t go on boats.
“I spent 21 years of feeling grateful and thankful for every extra day that I got to spend with my mum. From the very beginning when I was told that she would likely die, she managed to surprise everyone and come through so much.”
Kirk’s elder child, Shane, said Craig had “taken her away from our lives too soon”.
Craig had previously been convicted of grievous bodily harm with intent in relation to the attack, and had served more than 15 years in prison. However, he was arrested and charged with Kirk’s murder in 2021 following her death in August 2019. Bristol Crown Court was told that the injuries Kirk sustained in the petrol attack were linked to her death from a ruptured diaphragm.
Kirk’s daughter Sonna described how people would stare at her mother and cross the road to avoid her after the assault because of the severity of her burns. She said the family was originally told her mother would not survive the attack.
She praised the first responders and all those involved in providing her mother with medical care over the years, saying: “If it wasn’t for them we wouldn’t have had the extra 21 years, and we’re very, very grateful for all the hard work they did.”
Kirk’s strong character helped her to recover, her daughter said. “Most people would describe her as stubborn, and that’s mostly seen as a negative thing, but for her it was a very positive thing, it kept her going and it got her stronger and it got her to be Jackie,” she added.
Her love of her dog, nature and photography, along with the support of her family and friends, helped Kirk to regain her confidence enough to “build up her life and be herself again”.
Jurors were told that scarring to Kirk’s chest and abdomen meant that they were not able to sufficiently expand when she suffered intestinal swelling. Doctors decided not to operate due to Kirk’s frailty, the court heard.
A jury at Bristol Crown Court unanimously convicted Craig of murder last month, finding that the injuries he caused – including burns to 35 per cent of Kirk’s body – were linked to her death from a ruptured diaphragm.
Kirk was in hospital for nine months after the attack and required 14 operations, including a tracheotomy and skin grafts. She survived for 21 years and was able to see both of her children get married, and become a grandmother.
In August 2019, she was taken to the Royal United Hospital in Bath, where she died the next day.
Richard Smith KC, prosecuting, told jurors that the law did not demand that they find Kirk’s injuries to be the sole or a main cause of her death, but that the contribution made by the injuries was “more than minimal”.
Following the trial, detective chief inspector Mark Almond said: “Jacqueline Kirk sustained unimaginable physical and mental injuries at the hands of Steven Craig. What he did to her was horrendous and had a profound effect on her and her family. Yet she surpassed doctors’ expectations and lived for a further 21 years, during which time she saw her children get married and several grandchildren born.
“While she managed to see many significant milestones, her life was still cut short by the injuries caused by Craig, and it was only right that he was held fully accountable. The jury agreed with the expert medical evidence, which concluded she would not have died the way she did had it not been for what Craig did to her.”
