Psychopath freed over earlier attack gets life for stabbing man to death

A VIOLENT psychopath who killed a young father only four months after walking free from a Scottish court over another attack was jailed for life yesterday.

Colin Welsh, 42, was told he must serve at least 12 years in prison as a judge described him as "clearly dangerous".

Paranoid schizophrenic Welsh was fined in March 2008 for badly beating a fellow student at St Andrews University. Welsh was left free to stab Elliot Guy, 27, a cabinetmaker, in the neck at a party in Tufnell Park, north London, in July 2008, the Old Bailey heard.

Judge Brian Barker said the decision of Cupar Sheriff Court, in Fife, not to send him to jail over the earlier attack was "merciful". He told Welsh: "The fact that you escaped custody should have been a turning point. Nothing I have been told indicates you sought any help for your illness, and it is the greatest pity you did not."

Welsh, who spent his childhood in and out of care homes, was first convicted of actual bodily harm at the age of 15 and has 39 convictions for violence, carrying knives and dishonesty.

He believeda transmitter had been implanted in his head, but refused treatment for his illness.