Alasdair Forsyth: Three youths who murdered Edinburgh pensioner have jail term cut
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Three youths who “were out their nuts” when they murdered a vulnerable pensioner in his home have had the punishment parts of their life sentences cut.
Keirin McMillan,20, and Levi Brown,17, received life sentences alongside Aron McMillan,17, for taking the life of 67-year-old Alasdair Forsyth following a horrific attack last year.
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Hide AdKeirin was ordered to serve at least 18 years in jail after killing Mr Forsyth in a vicious assault in which the victim suffered a horrific catalogue of injuries. He was 19 at the time of the appalling attack.
Aron was 16 when he took part in the fatal attack. He was told he would serve a minimum of 17 years and three months .
Levi was ordered to serve at least 17 years for the killing. Brown, now 16, was just 15 when he took part in the murder and robbery of Mr Forsyth at the flat in Edinburgh where he lived alone.
Last week judges at the Court of Criminal Appeal reduced the punishment parts of the life sentences given to the trio.
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Hide AdKeirin will now serve 16 years before he will be able to apply parole. Levi and Aron will both serve 13 years before they will be able to apply for parole.
At proceedings last year, Lord Uist told the trio at the High Court in Edinburgh: "Mr Forsyth suffered the most terrible injuries. He sustained a total of 80 injuries and died of blunt force chest trauma.
"It is a scandal in a supposedly civilised society that a man should meet his death in this manner.
"The attack on Mr Forsyth was a planned robbery in which each of you took a tool to be used as a weapon, namely a screwdriver, a wrench and a hammer, and battered him to death in his home.”
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Hide AdThe McMillan brothers and Brown had earlier denied murdering Mr Forsyth, a former Edinburgh University student, at his in Clearburn Road, in the city's Prestonfield area on February 21.
All three were found guilty of the crime following a trial and the two younger killers were also convicted of a violent crime spree in the days leading up to the murder in which children and adults were attacked in Edinburgh.
After he was detained Aron McMillan made a phone call from a youth jail in which he was recorded as saying that the attack on Mr Forsyth was for money. He added: "We were all just out our nut."
The trio attacked their victim with a screwdriver, hammer, wrench, his walking stick and picture frames and kicked and stamped on him. The victim sustained extensive rib fractures amongst an array of injuries.
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Hide AdKeirin McMillan had brought tools to a neighbour's house before the attack and repeatedly talked about there being money in books at the victim's home.
Police officers who responded to emergency calls went into the stairwell and heard "excited" male voices coming down the stairs before they met the blood-stained killers.
The trio’s legal teams went to the Court of Criminal Appeal last week.
A court official confirmed the outcome of the appeals on Thursday.