The decision not to release one of Scotland’s longest serving prisoners who was jailed for the brutal killing of a Glasgow lawyer has been ruled ‘unfair’. Dean Ryan was just 17-years-old when he was convicted of murdering Procurator Fiscal Marshall Stormonth and setting his body on fire in 1994, alongside his brother Steven, 21.
He was handed a life sentence with a punishment period of eight years and eventually released on licence in 2010. But the killer was hauled back into custody after being convicted of various offences, including theft by housebreaking, and handed an additional four month prison term.
During a second licence release, Ryan was recalled to jail after being accused of raping two women in August 2017. He was later acquitted of these charges by a jury. In March 2022, the Parole Board of Scotland refused his latest freedom bid after ruling that he still posed a risk to the safety of the general public.
The killer took his fight to the Court of Session in Edinburgh where his legal team argued that justice chiefs had blundered by considering the rape allegations in their decision. They also claimed that Ryan’s use of illicit painkillers behind bars did not mean he automatically had connections to organised crime.
The court was told that two social workers raised concerns about the criminal’s risk level as a result of his previous prison recall and decision to ‘self medicate’ behind bars. The board said: “Although Mr Ryan was not convicted of either offence, it is of significant concern to the Board that he found himself in such circumstances.
“What is of even more concern to the Board is that after having been questioned by the police in respect of the first alleged rape, he made the choice to invite another unknown female into a property in which he was residing at that time and was present whilst she consumed illicit substances.
“To have put himself in such a position and behaved in such a manner demonstrates to the Board Mr Ryan’s complete inability to manage his risks. It also demonstrates his inability to make good decisions or use consequential thinking and a significant lack of insight by him into his risks surrounding alcohol and/or substances.”
But Ryan himself told the board that he had consciously decided to self medicate and that the bottle he was caught with during drug testing procedures contained water, not urine. The court ruling stated: “He (Dean Ryan) explained that he had taken Pregabalin because he had been seeing the doctor for back pain.
“That particular day his back was sore and he decided to take the painkiller rather than wait for an appointment. The bottle had contained water, not urine. He realised that he ought rather to have told the testers that he had taken Pregabalin, but he stood by his decision to take it.
“In the community he could simply go to A&E or buy a painkiller; there would be no need to seek out an illicit drug. He was on a stable prescription of methadone and had been managing well on it for over two years.
“He had 'self-medicated' for back pain on four or five occasions when the prison doctor had failed to prescribe adequate analgesia. During his most recent release on licence he had become complacent with his licence conditions and recognised that he could make poor decisions.
“He did not have a drug problem outside prison. He acknowledged that he had to proactively manage who he was in contact with in the community.”
Lord Colin Tyre found that social workers had made their risk assessment based on the allegations of rape while also stating that the painkiller abuse was not justification enough for keeping him locked up.
He said: “There are, to say the least, indications that both social workers placed weight not only on the circumstances that led to the allegations being made, but also on the allegations themselves. Mr McKenna is reported to have described the sexual charges as “a whole new area of risk”.
“Ms George, having referred to the petitioner having been charged with “very serious and violent sexual offending”, expressed the view that he had “the propensity to use serious violence causing serious harm”, and that he continued to pose a risk of causing serious harm.
“I find it difficult to accept senior counsel’s submission that all of this should be read as relating to the index offence; that would, for example, afford no indication of whether the petitioner “continued” to pose a risk of causing serious harm. Although the tribunal notes elsewhere that the petitioner is on a methadone programme it is nowhere suggested that that aspect of his drug use causes him to pose a risk.
“It must be concluded… that the tribunal regarded the petitioner’s use of the illicit drug while in prison as constituting involvement in serious organised crime, and therefore of posing a risk of serious harm to the public. In my opinion that logical progression does not stand up to scrutiny and falls below an acceptable standard of reasoning as a part of the justification for continuing to confine the petitioner so long after tariff expiry.
“It follows that in relation to each of the two aspects of the tribunal’s reasoning challenged by the petitioner, I find that the tribunal’s decision was unfair.” Ryan is due to appear before the parole board again on December 19.
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