The beast downstairs

Friendly neighbour who had a decent job was a violent bully with a toxic past

George Kenneth Metcalff was the outwardly respectable manager of a number of tyre and exhaust centres in Paisley and across Renfrewshire during his working life.

To his friends and neighbours in Glenburn, ‘Kenny’ appeared to be a likeable and helpful man, who would assist where he could.

But, in reality, even as a pensioner, he was evil to the core with a menacing attitude to the multiple women in his life.

He was married twice and had a string of lovers.

Some would be beaten if dinner was not on the table and he would demand sex from them.

Detective Superintendent

Suzanne Chow, who led the hunt to bring him to justice, revealed: “He comes across as a man who likes to help people. He will run his friends about and help them go for their shopping.

“But, under the surface of that, there is quite a different veneer.

“For the past 50 years, Mr Metcalff has been a quite coercive or controlling individual over his previous partners.”

The brute, now 71, is likely to spend the rest of his life behind bars. In evidence, he claimed Patti owed him money and had left him in a bad financial situation.

DS Chow said: “We will never know what happened on the night.

“Metcalff was lending Patricia a lot of money in terms of buying alcohol and cat litter.

“And in Girvan he paid the deposit and a month’s rent up front, so she probably owed him about £1,000.

“But then he found out she had benefits that had been paid back to her and had a wee bit of money sitting in her bank, yet was borrowing money from him.

“He may have felt aggrieved about that. But I don’t know if that was the motive.”

Another possibility is he feared Patti, emboldened by her move to Girvan, was about to go to police, claiming he had raped her.

She had mentioned it to other people and that she was “going to speak to the police”.

DS Chow said: “He may have been a bit worried she was going to come forward and say he was a rapist.

“She also told her daughter that he had tried to choke her and she thought she was dead. A number of previous partners also said he had tried to choke them.”

The jury heard Metcalff was a brute who would demand sex from the women in his life, slap, punch and kick them if the dinner wasn’t ready.

He would be in charge of all the finances in the house and he was a “very controlling man”.

Metcalff was initially remanded in custody after being charged, but then allowed bail during lockdown to another address in Paisley.

He was largely unhelpful to police during interviews, giving little away and not showing any real concern about where Patti had gone.

And he denied doing anything to harm Patti, or that he strangled or controlled her.

He told the court: “When she was drinking, she had a tongue on her. When she was sober, she had a heart of gold.”

When she went missing he coldly wrote it off, saying: “I just thought she’d done a runner.”