Killer Alexander Pacteau was yesterday cleared of staging a violent jail riot along with other prisoners.
The 28-year-old and five others were alleged to have clashed with prison officers and police officers within E wing at Kilmarnock Prison. But Pacteau, who was jailed for life in 2015 for the murder of Irish nurse Karen Buckley, dodged a court appearance over the melee yesterday after falling ill in prison.
He was due to appear at Kilmarnock Sheriff Court to face a charge of behaving in a threatening or abusive way over the incident, which took place on August 10, 2019. But he pled not guilty and was cleared after three others admitted their role in the riot.
His solicitor, defence lawyer Ian Brechany, said: “He maintains his plea of not guilty. He is not here. He had been ordered down [to be brought from the jail to court] but there was an incident this morning.
“He complained of ill health and was examined in the jail by medical staff. They advised custody officers he was unfit to travel and that’s why he’s not here.”
Prosecutors had claimed he committed the offence along with fellow prisoners Christopher Taylor, 33, Lee McLelland, 39, Nicholas Depellette, 31, Barry O’Pray, 39, and Ross Baillie, 32. Pacteau, O’Pray and Baillie were cleared yesterday when their not guilty pleas were accepted by prosecutor Meghan Glancey.
McLelland and Depellette pleaded guilty to a reduced charge, while Taylor admitted his guilt and was sentenced previously. The charge they admitted stated they behaved in a way likely to cause a reasonable person to suffer fear or alarm by repeatedly shouting, swearing and ignoring prison officers’ pleas to return to their cells.
They created hazards for the guards, barricaded the entry points to the cell block, which prevented the officers getting inside, and damaged an ATM by striking it with an unknown weapon. They also damaged bins, stripped off to reveal their buttocks to the guards, challenged them to fight and threw broken pieces of a toilet and sink at the officers.
The charge states they also threw boiling water on the ground and threw a bin from the first floor down onto police officers. Claims that they had lashed out with their legs and tried to remove protective equipment from prison officers, were deleted from the charge.
McLelland was also cleared of a charge of assaulting prison officer James Callaghan by spitting on his head. After hearing that Depellette had accidentally been taken to Forfar Sheriff Court by custody officers instead of Kilmarnock, Sheriff Alistair Watson deferred sentence until today.
An incensed McLelland yelled from the dock: “I’ll not be back tomorrow. You sentence me just now or I’ll not be back in your court, it’s as simple as that.” In September 2015, Pacteau was jailed for 23 years for murdering Karen, 24, in April that year, after meeting her on a night out.
Karen, who had moved to Scotland to study for a Masters’ degree in occupational health at Glasgow Caledonian University, was bludgeoned with a spanner. Evil Pacteau then tried to dissolve her body in caustic soda in a plastic barrel at a farm, in a bid to get rid of the evidence.
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