Killer's 'misguided' ex-girlfriend escapes jail

Published on Monday 11 May 2009 22:11

A FORMER girlfriend of racist murderer Michael Ross was spared prison yesterday for acting out of misguided loyalty.

Social worker Lynn Neill, 30, who is pregnant, wept in the dock as judge Lord Hardie said he would not send her to jail.

But the judge ruled the mother-of-two was in contempt of court over the way she gave evidence at Ross's trial.

Ex-Army sergeant Michael Ross, 30 – a sniper in the Black Watch – was found guilty of the cold-blooded shooting of Bang-ladesh-born Shamsuddin Mahmood, 26, in Mumutaz restaurant in Kirkwall in May 1994.

Jailing him for a minimum of 25 years last October, Lord Hardie told him it was "a vicious, evil, unprovoked murder".

The trial heard how as teenage sweethearts Ross and Neill were walking on the beach at Scapa Flow when he showed her a handgun and said he could get access to the safe where his dad kept firearms. It was about the time of the waiter's murder.

The High Court in Edinburgh heard yesterday that when Neill was interviewed by a member of Ross's legal team she realised how important her description of the handgun might be.

In the witness box she claimed she hadn't seen it.

"It seems to me that, perhaps out of misguided loyalty to Ross and his family, you were guilty of contempt of court," said Lord Hardie. But under the circumstances he would admonish her.