Monsters let out of jail early to rape, maim and murder
JAMES Wright is the latest addition to a growing list of dangerous criminals freed early from prison who carry out more horrific acts.
Over the past decade, inmates granted early release have gone on to commit a catalogue of despicable crimes – including rape, murder and assault.
Last August, convicted murderer Robbie McIntosh attacked grandmother Linda McDonald with a dumbbell while she was walking her dog in woods outside Dundee.
The 32-year-old had been jailed in 2002 for a minimum of 15 years for the murder of 34-year-old civil servant Anne Nicoll.
But he was allowed home for a week’s leave on the 16th anniversary of the murder last year as he was being prepared for release.
After only five days of freedom, he put a dumbbell in a rucksack and set out to carry out another horrific attack with chilling similarities to his original crime.
Mrs McDonald, 52, suffered two skull fractures, hand injuries and permanent scars.
McIntosh was given a Lifelong Restriction Order, which means he may never be released from prison, at the High Court in Aberdeen after pleading guilty earlier this year to attempted murder.
In April last year, a double rapist violently assaulted a young woman while he was on early release from prison.
Fraser Summers, 30, was jailed for nine years in 2010 for targeting two prostitutes in separate incidents.
But after being freed early, he attacked Lauren Cusick and her friend.
Glasgow Sheriff Court heard the sex offender grabbed Miss Cusick on Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow, pinned her against a shop window by the throat and punched her in the face. He was jailed for a further nine months for the attack.
A convicted rapist, John Daly, sexually assaulted a young woman soon after being released early from prison.
The 31-year-old was jailed for seven years in March 2011 and given a Lifelong Restriction Order for the rape of the 26-year-old trainee maths teacher at a flat in Glasgow in April 2010.
Daly had already been jailed for seven years in 2005 for raping a 17-year-old girl – he was granted early release in 2009.
In another tragic case, Paul McManus, 19, killed 51-yearold Isabelle Sanders and seriously injured her partner Norman Busby, 89.
It later emerged that McManus had a history of crime and violence.
The serial thug had been released early from jail only six weeks before the attack, at the couple’s home in the Crookston area of Glasgow in April 2014. He stabbed two people in the hours before the attack and was drunk and high on drugs.
After a hearing at the High Court in Livingston in 2015, McManus was handed a life sentence – with 21 years for the murder and a consecutive sentence of five years for the attempted murder and other offences.
Miss Sanders’s brother, James Dougall, called for serial offenders to be locked up until they died and said the family planned to lobby MSPs to change the law.
Another violent criminal, Ian Lennox, was released early from his jail term for assault but was then sent back to prison for slashing another man.
Lennox, from East Kilbride, Lanarkshire, admitted attacking William Baird in Saltcoats, Ayrshire, in September 2013.
He mistakenly believed Mr Baird had been responsible for his uncle being arrested.
At the High Court in Glasgow in 2014, Lennox was jailed for seven years and three months – two years of this the unexpired part of his previous prison term.
The 38-year-old had been jailed for eight years and three months in 2008 for assault to severe injury and permanent disfigurement. While serving this sentence, he went on the run for almost three weeks from HMP Castle Huntly, near Dundee, in 2011. But in 2013, he was allowed out on licence.
Even serial motoring offenders have been allowed to continue committing crimes after being freed early from jail terms.
John Phillips defied two lifetime bans and led police on a high-speed chase after being freed early from jail.
He was locked up again earlier this year.
He had committed 31 previous motoring offences and drove on the wrong side of the road as he tried to flee police officers.
The 28-year-old, described as one of Scotland’s worst drivers, was said to have appeared ‘heavily intoxicated’ when officers finally brought the chase to an end in Blairgowrie, Perthshire.
Perth Sheriff Court heard Phillips was jailed for 12 months in October last year for his fifth dangerous driving conviction, but had been released early.
Last month, he was sent to prison for 13 months and given a third lifetime ban.
Raped girl of 17, then a teacher