Pair jailed for killing man falsely accused of being paedophile

Williamina Stewart, 37, and Paul Noble, 17, carried out a “vicious” attack on Gordon Morrice, who suffered such serious head injuries that he spent the last nine months of his life in a care home, the High Court in Aberdeen heard.

The court was told that in June 2010 Mr Morrice, 57, had asked to bounce on a trampoline with children near his flat in Aberdeen, a move that sparked rumours in the community of Seaton that he was a paedophile.

The following day, Mr Morrice was badly beaten in a playing field close to his home.

Yesterday, Stewart, a mother of three from Blackburn, near Aberdeen, was jailed for ten years after admitting culpable homicide. Noble, of Aberdeen, who was 15 at the time of the assault, was sentenced to eight years’ detention.

Police condemned their actions yesterday, and Mr Morrice’s family said they had been left in “great pain and anguish”.

Grampian Police Detective Inspector Cammy Preston said: “There is absolutely nothing to suggest he [Mr Morrice] posed any risk or threat to children.

“Although those who have been convicted have been justly punished, there were others – some with their children – who stood by and watched the vicious attack on Mr Morrice and did nothing to stop it.”

Stewart and Noble went on trial charged with murder alongside three co-accused.

But they both pleaded guilty to killing Mr Morrice during their trial at the High Court in Aberdeen this month.

Stewart’s partner, Paul Yates, 38, and her brother, Hector Stewart, 30, admitted a reduced charge of assault. They were both admonished yesterday. The case against co-accused Robert Laird, 25, was dropped during the trial.

The court heard the tragedy unfolded after a resident claimed Mr Morrice had asked to bounce on her daughter’s trampoline in her garden.

Louise McKeown, 35, said she became suspicious and told other residents and police. She took a photograph of Mr Morrice when she spotted him in a betting shop.

But police checks on the welder returned clear.

Mr Morrice was beaten up on 24 June, 2010. He died in a nursing home on 14 March last year.

Stewart admitted killing him by repeatedly punching and kicking him at the head and body at the playing fields.

Noble – who had been studying for his Highers at St Machar Academy before the trial – admitted killing Mr Morrice by repeatedly punching him, kicking and stamping on his head and body at the playing fields and nearby Aulton Road.

His defence counsel, Edward Targowski, QC, had said the teenager was not the instigator of the attack. He told the court: “Responsibility for the start of the assault lay with persons far older and more mature than he. He was caught up in the excitement and what would appear to be the hysteria.”

Jock Thomson, QC, said Williamina Stewart, a laundry manager at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, had lashed out at Mr Morrice because she feared he had intentions of setting fire to her home and had acted as a “devoted mother”.

Lord Uist told Stewart: “You got it into your head that he was a paedophile when he was nothing of the sort. This shameful episode of violence was nothing other than vigilante justice – or in other words, injustice.”

In a statement, Mr Morrice’s family said: “Not only has our family lost a father and a son, but no amount of time can change what has happened or take our pain away.”