Edinburgh OAP killers had sentences cut because of their troubled lives say judges

APPEAL court judges cut the punishment parts of life sentences given to three teenagers who savagely murdered a vulnerable pensioner because of their youth and troubled personal lives, it has been revealed.

Keirin McMillan and Levi Brown received life sentences

Keirin McMillan, 20, and Levi Brown,17, received life sentences alongside Aron McMillan,17, for killing Alasdair Forsyth, 67, last year.

Keirin was ordered to serve at least 18 years, Aron, who was 16 at the time, was told he would serve a minimum of 17 years and three months and Brown, who was just 15 at the time, was ordered to serve at least 17 years.

A court previously heard the trio were “out their nuts” when they took Mr Forsyth’s life.

Last month judges at the Court of Criminal Appeal reduced the punishment parts of their life sentences.

Keirin will now serve at least 16 years while. Levi and Aron will both serve 13 years minimum.

Lords Carloway, Malcolm and Turnbull have now explained their reasons.

Lord Carloway said trial judge Lord Uist had failed to follow correct legal principles and should have given more consideration to their ages and backgrounds.

He wrote: “Given the brutal nature of this murder of a vulnerable person in his own home using extreme violence in pursuit of a pre-planned criminal objective, the punishment parts would, irrespective of the ages of the perpetrators, require to be substantial in the case of all three appellants.

“On the other hand it must be recognised that the degree of blame should be tempered by the troubled backgrounds to which all three appellants were subjected.

“Balancing all of these factors, the court is persuaded that the trial judge has placed insufficient weight on the youth of the appellants and their backgrounds and that the punishment parts selected were accordingly excessive.

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.”

The McMillan brothers and Brown had earlier denied murdering Mr Forsyth, a former Edinburgh University student, at his flat 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 bragging: "We were all just out our nut."

Mr Forsyth was attacked with a screwdriver, hammer, wrench, his walking stick and picture frames and kicked and stamped on him.

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