Leith Walk slasher is nephew of jilted acid attacker

JEALOUS knife thug Gary Modiak is the nephew of a notorious acid attacker, it has emerged.

Gordon Modiak at his 1991 trial. Picture: TSPL

Modiak was caged for seven-and-half years last week for slashing Peter Moyes - his former partner’s boyfriend - in the neck in a Leith Walk bar.

Modiak’s jilted uncle, Gordon, was jailed for 20 years in 1991 for hiring a hitman to throw acid in the face of his ex-wife, Louise Duddy.

He was later released but jailed for life in 2013 after trying to stab a nightclub bouncer after moving to Blackpool.

The dad-of-two flew into a rage over a remark that he’d be “more comfortable” in a gay bar.

The attack comes 22 years after he masterminded a crime which shocked Scotland.

After a bitter split from his wife, he paid a hired thug to throw sulphuric accident in her face - while he calmly watched from a getaway car parked in a quiet Slateford street.

Ms Duddy, who was blinded by the attack, was just 16 when she met Gordon Modiak, falling pregnant only a year later.

He was eight years older and with money to burn thanks to his criminal ­activities.

The couple married, but the relationship was brutally violent. Modiak was obsessional, possessive and a bully.

He kept her away from friends and stopped her seeing her family. Louise eventually took the brave step of leaving him, but even a court order insisting he stay away from his former partner was ineffective.

Modiak began plotting the attack on his ex-wife three months after their divorce.

His reign of terror came to a climax on February 13, 1991. Modiak had paid a man £3000 to throw a pint of sulphuric acid in his former wife’s face – while he watched from the vantage point of a getaway car.

The hired hitman, Kelvin Greenhalghse, hit the then 26-year-old full in the face as she ushered her two children into a car in Hutchison Place during a shopping trip.

The concentrated acid burned the enamel off her teeth and scarred her legs where it dripped through her clothes.

Her sons, Deane, then eight, and Ryan, one, were also injured by the acid.

Modiak – who tried and failed to appeal against a 20-year jail sentence – spent 14 years in prison.

Greenhalghse, 32 at the time of the trial and from Armadale, West Lothian, was also jailed for 20 years.

Modiak gave a whining interview to the Evening News after being released in 2005 from his 20-year sentence for the acid attack.

He said: “I’m out of prison now, but I’m still trapped. I’m made out as this monster, I’ve been portrayed as a nasty person – it’s not true.”

Speaking in his mother’s home in Bonnington Road, Modiak added: “I know I done wrong, it’s a terrible thing that I’ve done. But I’m being made to look like I was some kind of monster. I’m no angel, but I’m certainly not an animal.

“We knew acid burns, but we put our fingers in the stuff, it went warm for a second then cold. I thought she would end up with a red mark, it would go away within a month or two. I didn’t mean to blind her.”

He claimed he had driven himself into a moment of madness by a belief that Louise had been having affairs.

Modiak added: “Louise tries to say she was the perfect wife and it was total abuse from me. The worst thing I ever did was give her a black eye.”

Read more at: https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/crime/acid-attack-thug-back-in-jail-for-knife-assault-1-3186492

Join our Facebook group Our Edinburgh to share images and news from and around the Capital