ROW AFTER CONVICT KILLS SON YOU USED US
Family fury over probe into murder by tag thug They claim government invite was a PR stunt
A murder victim’s family have accused the Scottish Government of using them for a “PR stunt”.
Craig McClelland, 31, was knifed to death by James Wright after the thug destroyed a prison tag and went on the run for almost six months. The student’s partner Stacey McClelland and dad Michael have rapped Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf for failing to investigate properly before inviting them to parliament for a “total fanfare”.
The family of a dad-of-three stabbed to death by a serial knife thug have accused the Government of using them for a “PR stunt”.
Craig McClelland, 31, was killed by James Wr ight – a man with 16 convictions who had been “unlawfully at large” for almost six months after destroying an electronic prison tag.
Jailing the 25-year-old for life in June, Judge Lord Matthews said he had “no doubt questions will be asked” and then Justice Secretary Michael Matheson instructed police and prison watchdogs to “look at this matter thoroughly”.
But the Sunday Mail can reveal that neither Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland (HMICS) or Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons in Scotland (HMIPS) were ordered to look at Craig’s appalling case specifically.
The tragic student’s family have now launched a scathing attack on Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf over his handling of the case.
Craig’s dad Michael said: “The day we went to the Scottish Parliament to meet Humza Yousaf just felt like a piece of total fanfare for the government.
“They wanted to say ‘ We have these two reports, we have met with the family, we have got a great result on this one’.
“It was a PR stunt for the Justice Secretary. It didn’t feel like it was about us at all. It felt like a done-and-dusted deal for the Scottish Government – the McClelland family have got their reports and that is that.
“Well I’m sorry but we aren’t happy with what we have been told. We are very upset about the way these reports have come out.
“We have got generic reports. That is what they are. They aren’t specifically addressing Craig’s case and holding people to account.”
Yousaf pledged that knife convicts will no longer be released early from jail on tags after meeting with Michael and Craig’s partner Stacey just over a week ago.
In the Scottish Parliament, he then praised the victim’s family for their “tenacity and tireless campaigning”.
He said: “I want to thank them sincerely for their efforts as their campaigning means we will have a stronger, more robust home detention curfew regime.”
But Michael, from Paisley, said: “I didn’t ever launch a campaign. All I ever wanted was to find out exactly what went wrong in Craig’s case and who was responsible for it. “The police and prison failings were immense. They just didn’t do anything and they haven’t properly been held to account. “This guy was on Facebook practically every day after breaking off the tag. We could see his page after he was arrested. “He was saying things like, ‘We’ll meet up here, we’ll meet up there, I’ll take a blade because someone is getting plunged’. “He had every intention of plunging someone at some stage, it was going to happen as soon as he had the opportunity. “He was a murder waiting to happen. If it hadn’t been Craig it would have been someone else.” Michael revealed he believes his son, who died close to his home in Paisley, was killed for nothing more than a cigarette which his attacker then smoked as he walked down the street.
He added: “From what I understand Wright stabbed Craig and took the roll-up cigarette he had and smoked it going down the road.
“Nobody could find the cigarette afterwards so I think that is what happened.”
Wright had been sent to Low Moss jail for carrying a knife on October 21, 2016 – but despite a litany of convictions, including a number involving knives, he was placed on a Home Detention Curfew (HDC) with a tag just four months later on February 13, 2017. G4S
security workers were alerted that he had tampered with the device and notified the Scottish Prison Service soon afterwards and prison management revoked his licence.
But Michael has been told police made only one attempt to trace the convict, prior to him stabbing Craig to death on July 23.
Taxi driver Michael added: “We have these two reports but they don’t really go into the specifics of Craig’s case.
“The prison report especial ly is completely lacking in anything that we wanted to know.
“It doesn’t tell us what category of prisoner Wright was and we know that if he was high or medium risk he shouldn’t have been considered for release on a tag. The reports only really look at the general situation – two inspectors sat and told us that.
“It has been 100 per cent a whitewash because when you start looking into the things that did happen, they just haven’t answered the difficult questions.
“Why was this guy allowed out in the first place when he should have been a category A prisoner and why was he not picked up straight away rather than being allowed to do whatever he wanted for six months.
“The police report was a bit more open, but there was still huge holes in the information that someone needs to fill.”
Michael added : “A divisiona l commander came to Stacey’s house and was very nice and very open and up front with us, which I was very happy about, but he basically said that the police had let us down dreadfully.
“I know that the law let them down as well in the respect that when someone comes out on a tag the police don’t have any specific powers to go in and break doors down to get them without first going to court.
“But it was six weeks after Wright broke his tag off that the police even had any record of anyone going to a door to try to find him.
“Why didn’t they go to court to get the necessary warrants to go and find this guy when it should have been clear what a danger he was to the public.
“There were 168 days between Wright breaking the tag off and him killing Craig. According to the law, he should have been picked him up after 14 days. In my view, 90 per cent of the failings here come from the prison’s side for letting him out in the first place but the police made a lot of mistakes.
“At the end of the day, however, we just really don’t know exactly who is to blame because we haven’t been given the full story.
“I know that a public inquiry or a Fatal Accident Inquiry are both options that should be considered.”
Craig’s partner of eight years Stacey, who has now been left to bring up their three young boys alone, wants to be able to tell her children what really happened to their dad.
She said: “When we went to the Scottish Parliament someone told us we could ‘give ourselves a pat on the back’ for getting some amendment or another.
“Well that is not what I want. I want to have something to tell my three sons because they are going to be asking questions when they grow up.
“There were all these terrible mistakes and unless there is a real investigation, real transparency, then we will never get to the bottom of it.
“It is also really important to try to do something to make sure nobody has to go through this again.
“I think the police and prison service have just brushed over everything in these reports. “They don’t focus on Craig. “They have put his name in a few times but that is just a template.
“At the end of the day people haven’t done their jobs properly and if people in the prison service and the police service had done their jobs Craig would be alive today – I have no doubt of that.”