8 years for killer pair who pushed victim off bridge
TWO killers were jailed for eight years each yesterday after they pushed a stranger over canal bridge railings to his death. Mark Munro and James Robertson had been drinking before the fatal attack on Russell Robertson at Bainsford Bridge, in Falkirk.
The victim fractured his skull in the fall and his body was retrieved from the Forth and Clyde Canal more than an hour later. A court heard that Mr Robertson would have been unconscious when he entered the water.
A judge told the pair at the High Court in Edinburgh: ‘Russell Robertson will be missed forever by his family.’
Lady Carmichael said she had received a victim impact statement which clearly set out the daily grief caused by the 27year-old’s death. The judge said: ‘You both participated in an act the consequences of which were unpredictable and which undoubtedly carried some degree of risk.’
She went on: ‘No one may ever know why you pushed him over the railings. The whole incident was over within less than a minute.’ Lady Carmichael said that Munro, 31, and Robertson, 27, had been drinking for hours before the attack but that provided ‘no mitigation or excuse of any kind’.
Munro, of Denny, Stirlingshire, and Robertson, of Pitlochry, Perthshire, had earlier stood trial accused of the murder of Mr Robertson, formerly of Falkirk, on May 29 last year, which they denied.
Both were found guilty of the lesser offence of culpable homicide by a jury at the High Court in Glasgow.
Lady Carmichael said no weapons were used in the killing and told Munro and Robertson: ‘Both of you have essentially lived useful, hard-working, productive lives until now.’
All three men had been at the Warehouse nightclub in Falkirk before the attack and were making their way home after 3am.
Robertson was then approached by the victim and they got into a struggle. Munro, who had been on the phone, became involved. Witnesses reported seeing the men apparently ‘play fighting’ before the pair grabbed Mr Robertson by the legs.
Nightclub security manager Kevin Gibney said he saw the victim disappear off the bridge. He said: ‘One minute he was there and the next he was gone.’