Man with 'killer's eyes' loses appeal against conviction

A MAN who was jailed for an underworld murder after a witness identified him by his "killer's eyes" lost an appeal yesterday.

John McDonald, 26, gunned down Kevin McCluskey, 39, during a feud among gangsters in the Pollok area of Glasgow.

The victim had been suspected of stabbing to death McDonald's father.

The gunman who kicked open the door at McCluskey's parents' home in Leithland Road, Pollok, and shot him repeatedly had his face partially covered, but was seen from a neighbouring house.

The witness, a 20-year-old man referred to only as P, gave evidence from behind screens at McDonald's trial and said he had picked out the accused from police photographs, and at an identification parade. He also pointed to McDonald in court and said: "I don't think you forget the eyes of a killer."

A jury convicted McDonald, of Hapland Road, Pollok, and he was jailed for life for the murder, and ordered to serve a minimum of 18 years, but his lawyers argued at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh that no reasonable jury could have accepted the identification evidence given by P.

The court heard that in 2002, McDonald's father, Derek, had been stabbed outside his home in Pollok. The family believed McCluskey was responsible. The shooting of McCluskey was carried out on a Sunday evening in February 2005.

Lord Carloway, who heard the appeal with Lords Eassie and Brailsford, said in yesterday's judgment that the question was whether, looking at all the evidence, the court was satisfied that a miscarriage of justice had occurred because no reasonable jury could have held the case proved beyond reasonable doubt.

But the judgment concluded the jury's verdict appeared to be a "an entirely rational one".