A prison riot on the wing where acid bath killer Alexander Pacteau was housed was sparked by a protest over missing mail, a court heard today. The 28-year-old was jailed for 23-years for the murder of Irish nursing student Karen Buckley in Glasgow and is serving his sentence at HMP Kilmarnock.
And Kilmarnock Sheriff Court heard today that a four-hour riot started on the wing where he is being held as prisoners were upset about not receiving letters. The details emerged at the sentencing hearing of Lee McLelland and Nicholas Depellette, who admitted a charge of threatening or abusive behaviour over the incident.
Pacteau was accused of the same offence but his not guilty plea was accepted yesterday. Prosecutor Meghan Glancey said that around 40 prisoners refused to comply with prison guards' instructions to lock up for the evening. She explained: "They advised they were conducting a peaceful protest due to not receiving mail.
"Their behaviour began to deteriorate and prison officers retreated to the central hub, locking the central gates - in effect giving control of the wing over to the prisoners." The court heard that guards tried to reason with the prisoners before officers dressed in riot gear entered the wing and that the situation was not resolved until 10.20pm.
Miss Glancey added: "It took 50 prison officers to resolve the situation, including some who returned to duty on days off. Nicholas Depellette was seen on CCTV at 9.48pm approaching prison officers, shouting and acting aggressively towards them.
"At the end of the incident he was throwing broken pieces of a sink at prison sttaff and he refused to enter his cell when asked to do so." She said Lee McLelland, 39, was involved "from start to finish", shouting and acting aggressively towards staff and marching around wielding a makeshift weapon - a sock containing a "weighted item".
He threw hot water onto the ground, struck an ATM, CCTV camera and table with a weapon, pushed a pool table against a gate, threw liquid over officers and threw a bin from the first floor dow onto them. He also threw broken ceramics at them and spat onto the visor that one officer was holding over his face.
Sheriff Murdo Mactaggart said McLelland has a "very lengthy and terrible record" of previous convictions, adding: "There's every kind of offence one can think of, and your behaviour on this occasion was absolutely dreadful." He jailed McLelland for 21 months, reduced from two years, and backdated the sentence to yesterday, when he pleaded guilty.
Depellette, 31, is currently on a Community Payback Order imposed in another case and has still to be sentenced over other offences at Forfar Sherif Court. Sheriff Mactaggart called for background reports to be prepared and deferred sentence over the jail riot until next month.
Co-accuseds Barry O’Pray, 39, and Ross Baillie, 32, were cleared of the same charges yesterday, while Christopher Taylor, 33, admitted his guilt and was sentenced previously. Pacteau dodged a court hearing yesterday after falling ill behind bars, where he is serving life for the murder of Karen, 24.
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He killed her in April 2015, bludgeoning her with a spanner after meeting her on a night out, before trying to dissolve her body in caustic soda in a plastic barrel at a farm, in a bid to get rid of the evidence. Karen had moved to Scotland to study for a Masters’ degree in occupational health at Glasgow Caledonian University.
