Family torn apart as ex-soldier son convicted of murdering 87 year old grandmother

Garry Kane, 41, was found guilty of killing Kathleen Milward at her home in Stonehouse, Lanarkshire, on 3 January.

The jury took just three hours to find Kane guilty and judge Lord Matthews will determine how many years Kane must serve behind bars before being eligible for parole when he sentences him in January.

As the verdict was delivered, Kane turned around and glared at his aunt, Maureen Kennedy, who sat sobbing in the public gallery of the courtroom at the High Court in Dumbarton.

His mother Kathleen Kane sat weeping in on the other side of the court from her sister.

Outside court, Mrs Kennedy said: “I don’t hate my nephew, but I hate what he has done.”

She placed the blame for the killing on Kane’s addiction to heroin, a drug which she said was a scourge on society.

Advocate depute Jennifer Bain, prosecuting, told the court Kane had previous convictions for breach of the peace and theft, and was jailed for four months at Winchester Crown Court, in 1997, for actual bodily harm.

Kane bludgeoned to death his frail grandmother – who suffered from heart problems and high blood pressure – and then phoned his drug dealer to buy heroin.

He left the woman, who had helped bring him up and who regarded him as a son, dead or dying on her kitchen floor and went off to smoke the drug.

Hours later, when he returned, he pretended to find her body and claimed he knew nothing about her horrific

injuries.

But he was caught through forensic evidence on his clothing and on his grandmother which proved he was the killer.

Judge Lord Matthews told Kane: “The jury have found you guilty of a charge of murder. The only sentence I can impose is one of life imprisonment.”

Outside court, Mrs Kennedy said: “Almost a year ago on 3 January, my elderly mother was brutally murdered in the sanctuary of her own home.

“She was a frail 87-year-old who endured a sustained, prolonged and violent attack, and despite desperate but futile attempts to defend herself, her life ended on her kitchen floor that day.

“I cannot begin to imagine the suffering in her last moments of life or begin to comprehend how her beloved grandson who should have been caring for her could have been so cruel.

“It was said in court that Garry Kane had immense love and respect for his gran and that he absolutely adored her, that he wouldn’t have hurt a hair on his gran’s head and whoever did this to her was cold and callous enough to harm her and leave her to die alone.

“It’s been a long and painful year for my family and trying to come to terms with the terrible death.

“I believe that ultimately drugs, namely heroin, killed my mother. Drugs are a curse on society.

“Garry Kane is an addict. His life become a daily struggle to get from one fix to the next.”

Mrs Kennedy said that neither her sister – Kane’s mother – nor her mother could cope with his drug problem which led him to beg, steal and borrow to get his next fix.

She added: “His demands for money to feed his addiction were endless.

“His gran in the end had

had enough and when she told him this, she paid the ultimate price.”

Mrs Kennedy said: “I don’t hate my nephew, but I hate what he has done .

“He has caused unspeakable and unbearable pain to all his family.

“Justice has been done, but there are no winners and it won’t bring my mother back.”