Mother tells court how soldier son died in her arms after street attack

A MOTHER wept as she told how her soldier son "died in her arms" after being stabbed outside the family home.

Anne McGee said she begged her son Paul to get up as he lay on the ground after the attack.

Mrs McGee was yesterday giving evidence at the trial of a man accused of murdering the 28-year-old Scots Guard.

Barry McGrory, 28, denies the charge and has lodged a special defence incriminating co- accused Ian Wallace.

Mrs McGee told the High Court in Glasgow how she and her son, his girlfriend and her mother had been at a charity function last October.

Mr McGee – who served in Iraq and Northern Ireland – was visiting home from his barracks in Edinburgh.

They later got a taxi in the early hours to Mrs McGee's home in McConnell Road, Lochwinnoch, from the event in Johnstone, Renfrewshire.

The 54-year-old carer said, when they arrived, the driver's door was pulled open and a man shouted: "Have you got a f***ing problem?"

Mrs McGee claimed this person then punched the driver before she and her family got out of the vehicle. The witness – who gave evidence from behind screens – told the jury: "My son tried to pull him back. My son said: 'What do you think you are doing, mate?'.

"I was shouting don't dare embarrass me in my street. I was shouting at this deranged person."

Mrs McGee said the man then came at her and grabbed her.

She went on: "I tried to grab his hair and then I heard my son: 'Don't you dare touch my mum'.

"I got punched then I fell to the ground. I could not believe that this was happening."

Mrs McGee managed to get up and saw a man running off shouting: "Do you know who I am? I am Ian Wallace."

She then discovered her son lying on the pavement.

"I just told my son to get up," she said. "I said: 'It's mum, please son, get up'.

"Neighbours came on to the street and told me that he had been stabbed – then my son died in my arms."

Mrs McGee said her son was taken in an ambulance before she later got a call from her daughter's boyfriend to say he had died.

Mrs McGee said: "He was easy-going and popular. He was a son that every mum would have been proud to have."

Prosecutor Alistair Carmichael asked the witness whether she picked out anyone at an identity parade.

She replied: "Ian Wallace – that was the person who attacked me and the taxi driver."

Wallace, 28, faces an allegation that he assaulted the soldier, Mrs McGee and her friend Ann Laycock.

He has lodged a special defence of self-defence.

The trial, before Judge Lord Woolman, continues.