A GANG of six 'terrorist' fire bombers who tried to turn Greenock into a 'warzone' were yesterday jailed for a total of more than 64 years between them.

Murderous thugs Robert Warnock and Craig McFarlane, with 'footsoldiers' Kieran McAnally, Brendan O'Donnell, Cain Carr and Drew Darling, tried to kill seven people — including a six-year-old girl — in a wave of targeted nighttime attacks.

A High Court judge told the plotters that the sentences he was imposing were intended as a 'warning' to anyone else who might consider wreaking such violence upon the town.

Lord Mulholland said: "You engaged in a campaign of terror which was planned and executed over a period of months."

Ringleader Warnock, 26 — who orchestrated the attacks from a prison cell — was sentenced to 15 years and three months.

The sentence will be added to an 11-year term he is currently serving for trying to murder defenceless woman Lynsey O'Neill with a meat cleaver in 2019.

Warnock's henchman McFarlane, 27, was given 15 years, Carr, who is 23, ten years, McAnally, 26, nine years, O'Donnell, 24, nine years and Darling, 28, six years.

Warnock became 'unhinged' following an attempted murder attack on his 18-year-old brother, Reece, and the subsequent desecration of the teenager's grave following his death two months after the incident, the High Court in Glasgow was told.

He then enlisted McFarlane and the others to petrol bomb the homes of relatives of his arch enemy Lenny Cole.

Tony Lenehan KC, for Warnock, said: "Footage [of the graveside vandalism] was posted on the internet for all to see.

"It unhinged Robert Warnock."

In one of two attacks on the flat of Cole's parents on Union Street, drug-intoxicated fire bomber George Miller, 46, accidentally torched himself to death.

Lord Mulholland told the gang: "You plotted and targeted individuals so that they would be murdered.

"It involved the bombing of properties at night when individuals were at home and, in the third act, when clearly a child was at home.

"The danger you posed is emphasised by the tragic death of George Miller who was engulfed in burning petrol and who burned to death.

"You Robert Warnock and Craig McFarlane plied him with drugs and it is clear from the CCTV footage that he was not in a fit state.

"You referred to him as a 'junkie', which said it all about how you perceived him.

"He was collateral damage to both of you."

The Union Street flat was targeted on July 13 and September 14 2020.

A house at Cumberland Road in Larkfield had a petrol bomb thrown at it on September 19 that year — whilst the young child was asleep upstairs.

Lord Mulholland said that Warnock and McFarlane 'fully intended' to continue their campaign, and would have done so, were they not thwarted by the 'fine work of Police Scotland'.

The judge told McAnally and Carr — who were involved in the Cumberland Road incident — that they would have known that a child lived there because of the number of toys lying in the garden.

Thomas Ross KC, for first offender Darling, told the court that his client was a 'conscript rather than a willing volunteer' in what had become a 'street war'.

Cabbie Darling's taxi was used in the first attack at Union Street and he was seen on CCTV filling up a petrol can and buying glass bottles of Irn Bru at the BP station on Inverkip Road.

Iain McSporran KC, for McFarlane, said he had been driven by 'misguided loyalty and friendship', adding: "He will take advantage of every opportunity to address his past behaviour."

O'Donnell's lawyer said: "He describes the offence as the worst thing he's done in his life and has expressed genuine remorse."

The court was told that O'Donnell was 'under the influence of alcohol and drugs when he agreed to become involved, and during his participation' in the first Union Street attack.

Lord Mulholland, a former Greenock prosecutor, added: "You sought to turn Greenock into a warzone.

"The good people of Greenock deserve better than being subjected to this gangsterism."