Murderer’s suicide said to be ‘deliberate and planned’

MURDERER Steven Dickie had been taking illegal drugs and lost his prison job in the days leading up to his suicide, a court has heard.

Dickie, 24, was serving a life sentence for killing oil industry worker Steven Donaldson at Kinnordy nature reserve, near Kirriemuir, in June 2018.

He killed himself at Perth Prison in November 2019, the same day as his accomplices Tasmin Glass and Callum Davidson lost their bid to have their sentences reduced.

Despite taking drugs during his time in the prison, a sheriff ruled they had not played a part in his death as the notes showed it was “deliberate and planned”.

Dickie had been sacked from his job as a “passman” in the jail on the previous day, a position which allowed him to have certain privileges.

Yesterday, Sheriff Gillian Wade, who presided over a fatal accident inquiry held earlier this year, released her findings.

She had heard evidence that doctors who conducted a post mortem on Dickie found he had taken spice – a psychoactive drug popular among prisoners.

The inquiry also heard Dickie had taken an anti-depressant called mirtazapine before he died. The substance had not been prescribed to him.

In May 2019, jail staff also placed Dickie on the Scottish Prison Service’s anti-suicide Talk To Me Policy after his mother said she was worried for her son’s mental health.

He was placed on 60-minute observations but these were removed after staff concluded he was at no risk of taking his life.

Their conclusions were based on Dickie not expressing or showing any desire to do so.

In a written judgement issued yesterday, Sheriff Wade said the evidence in the case showed prison staff could not have done anything to stop Dickie from taking his life.

She wrote: “I accepted the submission of the procurator fiscal to the effect that the deceased was unlikely to have been acting under some sort of psychosis or hallucination at the time of his death as he had left a number of notes for his friends and family, and specific directions about what he wished to be done with his property.

“It was therefore clear that, whatever his motivation, the deceased’s actions in taking his life were deliberate and planned.

“It is quite impossible for me to find any causal link between the consumption of these substances and the deceased’s death on the basis of the evidence before me.

“All that can be said with certainty is that the deceased was clearly using drugs within the prison system while expressly denying that this was the case.

“He had no history of substance abuse and had not sought any help for any such problem.

“There was no overt sign that he was ever under the effects of any substance and, on the contrary, seems to have held a position of responsibility within the prison without being compromised by apparent substance misuse.

“There are many factors which could have affected the deceased such as the loss of his job as a passman, his ingestion of drugs with unknown consequences, the lack of prospects of an appeal or simply the prospect of having to spend a lengthy period of time in custody.

“None of these on their own seem to have been the motivating factor behind the deceased’s actions and any attempt to attribute a motive would be speculation.

“On the basis of the evidence I cannot suggest any recommendations of the sort suggested... which might realistically have prevented this or other deaths in similar circumstances.”

Dickie was ordered to serve at least 23 years following a trial before judge Lord Pentland at the High Court in Edinburgh.

Along with Tasmin Glass and Callum Davidson, Dickie was convicted of Mr Donaldson’s murder after viciously assaulting him in June 2018.

Glass, then aged 20, lured Mr Donaldson, who was her ex-boyfriend and the father of her unborn child, to a deadly rendezvous.

Dickie, who had been in a sexual relationship with Glass, and Davidson, then

24, were recruited to confront their victim, which led to his death at

Kinnordy.

Mr Donaldson,

27, pictured, was repeatedly struck on the head and body with a baseball bat and a

“heavy

-bladed