The brute who murdered nurse Karen Buckley after picking her up outside a Glasgow nightclub has been cleared of staging a prison riot.
Alexander Pacteau was accused of being among inmates who clashed with police and prison officers while serving life for killing the 24-year-old and then trying to dissolve her body in a bath of caustic soda at his home in Kelvindale.
He had been due to appear at Kilmarnock Sheriff Court this week, but dodged making a personal appearance after taking ill in jail. He was cleared of behaving in a threatening or abusive way over the incident in the E wing at Kilmarnock prison in 2019 after three others pled guilty, the Daily Record reports.
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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 from 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 was studying for Masters' degree in occupational health at Glasgow Caledonian University when Pacteau strangled and repeatedly hit her with a foot-long wrench in his car.
He carried her body to his flat and after trying to dispose of her body in the bath, he dumped her remains in a barrel at a farm in Milngavie.
Pacteau admitted murdering Karen and hiding her body and was ordered to serve a minimum of 23 years at the High Court in Glasgow in September 2015.
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