Postmaster cleared of killing irate customer

A POSTMASTER and his brother were yesterday cleared of killing a complaining customer.

Edward Brown, 51, and his brother Alan, 63, had been accused of holding the man down and restricting his breathing.

Both were found not guilty of culpable homicide following a trial at the High Court in Glasgow.

John McGuire was said to have gone into the Cardonald Post Office in Glasgow in March last year to complain about the cost of posting a parcel.

Jurors heard Edward Brown feared he might be stabbed, but it emerged the 56-year-old customer had been holding a Snickers chocolate bar.

Mr McGuire – who weighed almost 20-stone – later died of asphyxia in hospital. Prosecutors claimed the brothers held Mr McGuire on the ground and stamped on his body.

It was also alleged they pressed his neck and knelt on his back, restricting his breathing.

But the pair denied causing Mr McGuire’s death, and Edward Brown insisted he had feared for his life.

The postmaster showed relatives CCTV of the incident to prove that he and his brother were innocent.

He told jurors: ‘I needed my family to know what happened and that I was not responsible.

‘They have come to an agreement that it [the trial] should not be happening.’

Relatives of the men sobbed loudly following the verdicts, while the family of Mr McGuire stormed out the packed courtroom.

Edward Brown, of Renfrew, said he knew Mr McGuire as a customer who came in once a month. He recalled him being ‘very agitated’ when he turned up on March 25 last year.

The postmaster said: ‘He felt he had paid too much for a postal item. He was sold something he did not want. He believed a member of staff had an attitude towards him.’

Edward Brown said he was called a ‘scum dwarf’, but was not bothered by the remark. Mr McGuire then returned to the shop and apparently ‘swung a punch’ at the postmaster.

Edward Brown said he was grabbed before both men ended up on the ground. Alan Brown, who was dropping something at the post office for his brother, then came in to help.

Edward Brown said he was ‘not moving’ away from Mr McGuire until police arrived. His QC, Thomas Ross, asked: ‘What was your concern?’

He replied: ‘That there was a mad man. If he got up, God knows what he would have done.’

He felt there was ‘no position to negotiate’ with Mr McGuire.

The accused then added: ‘I felt my life was threatened.’

The court heard claims Edward Brown stated: ‘You are not going to stab me with that.’ But it turned out Mr McGuire had been clutching a Snickers bar.

Edward Brown added: ‘I am not happy with the outcome [the death], but there was nothing intentional.’

Alan Brown, of the city’s Craigton, remembered the post office being ‘quite chaotic’ and the atmosphere ‘terrifying’. He insisted he was only defending his brother.

Asked if he had gone ‘way too far’, he replied: ‘Absolutely not.’

‘I felt my life was threatened’