Four gangsters who carried out a brutal cold blooded hit on a man in a city street are appealing their convictions for murder. Lawyers for Morton Eadie,56, his son Darren,31, Ross Fisher,30, and John Kennedy,42, have gone to the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh to overturn their guilty verdicts.
The quartet received minimum jail terms totalling 94 years earlier this year for shooting Kenny Reilly in Maryhill, Glasgow, in 2018. But lawyers for the men, who come from Glasgow, believe their clients have suffered a miscarriage of justice and have lodged appeals against their convictions and sentences.
On Wednesday, a court official said that appeal judges were currently considering the grounds of the appeal that have been lodged. The judges are expected to give their decision on whether the appeals should proceed sometime in the near future.
At the end of their trials in February 2022, Kennedy, the shooter, was acquitted of murdering a second man, Jamie Campbell, who was gunned down in a street in Drumchapel, in Glasgow, in 2006, on a not proven verdict. Passing sentence, Lord Beckett told the gang of four: "For murder the punishment is fixed by law and you will be sentenced to life imprisonment."
"People who are prepared to engage in such meticulously planned and ruthlessly perpetrated assassination on the streets of our cities can expect substantial punishment." Lord Beckett pointed out that six shots were fired from an automatic pistol during the murder of Kenny Reilly "from some distance" as the innocent driver sought to reverse when her passenger, the target for the attack, realised what was happening.
Only one round hit him on the head with catastrophic results. The judge said: "While the attack was plainly directed at Kenneth Reilly, it showed gross indifference to the safety of the driver and the public."
Lord Beckett told Darren Eadie that he took particular account of the role he played in organising the crime and recruiting some of the others. He said that in Kennedy's case of particular significance was a previous conviction from 2008 at the High Court in Glasgow for firearms offence which resulted in 54 months imprisonment.
After sentencing the quartet of killers the judge told the remaining 13 jurors who returned verdicts: "Plainly this has been a long and demanding trial and there has been some evidence which some of you may have found deeply upsetting to listen to." All four were found guilty of murdering Mr Reilly at Bilsland Drive, in Glasgow, at the junction with the Maryhill Road on April 16 in 2018 by repeatedly discharging a firearm at him and shooting him in the head, leaving him so severely injured that he died two days later at Glasgow Royal Infirmary.
Both Fisher and Kennedy bowed their heads as the verdicts were returned. They were all also convicted of attempting to defeat the ends of justice on April 16 in 2018 by setting fire to a Ford S-Max car used in the hit on land at Craigieburn Gardens, in Glasgow, in a bid to destroy evidence linking them to the murder.
The offences were aggravated by a connection with serious organised crime Kennedy was also accused of murdering Jamie Campbell on March 4 in 2006 at Essenside Avenue, in Drumchapel, by repeatedly discharging a gun at him and repeatedly shooting him on the body, but was acquitted of the offence.
A further charge of attempting to defeat the ends of justice on March 4 in 2006 by setting fire to a Fiat Ducato van at Auchenhowie Road, Milngavie, levelled against Kennedy was also found not proven. The appeal court is likely to give its decision later this year.
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