Carstairs murderer a step nearer to prison

Published on Saturday 4 February 2012 02:51

A KILLER’S campaign to be moved to prison after more than 40 years in the State Hospital at Carstairs has taken a step forward.

Alexander Reid, 62, has already been to the highest courts in Britain and Europe, and prompted the first legislation passed by the Scottish Parliament, but has failed in his quest to swap life in the high-security hospital for a jail cell.

Down the decades, Reid has never been able to secure his release from hospital. He would come under the parole system for the first time if he became part of the prison population.

Yesterday, three judges at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh refused to dismiss Reid’s latest attempt to overturn the hospital sentence he received in 1967 for stabbing to death a young mother in her home in Glasgow.

They said the case should be considered by a bench of five judges, which would be needed to grant his appeal.

Reid, then 17, was charged with murdering Angela McCabe, 22, in Bishopbriggs, East Dunbartonshire.

He pleaded guilty to the reduced charge of culpable homicide on the basis of diminished responsibility. Psychiatrists told the High Court in Glasgow that Reid suffered from “mental deficiency” and he was ordered to be detained in the State Hospital without limit of time.

In 1985, Reid was moved to Sunnyside Hospital, Montrose, where he was afforded a measure of freedom. He assaulted and tried to abduct an eight-year-old girl and was jailed for three months.

After the sentence, he was returned to the State Hospital. He applied a number of times to be discharged but all were refused.

In 1997, Reid won a ruling in the Court of Session in Edinburgh, later upheld by the Lords, that patients could be detained only if they were receiving treatment likely to alleviate or prevent a deterioration in their condition.