The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Killer faces court over public indecency act
Defendant must now face High Court in Glasgow over release terms
An Angus man who was jailed for life for the “horrible” murder of a Dundee woman is back behind bars after committing an act of “public annoyance” outside a nursery.
Brian Mearns drove a stake through the head of his victim Linda Batchelor and was jailed for life at the High Court in Dundee in 1977.
He appeared from custody at Forfar Sheriff Court yesterday and admitted urinating outside the Lilypond Nursery in Arbroath earlier this week. In a brief hearing before Sheriff Gregor Murray, Mearns, of Adam Cargill Court in Arbroath, admitted urinating in public at the gates of the Ladyloan nursery on Wednesday.
The court heard he would be recalled to face the High Court in Glasgow due to the terms of his release on licence in 2003, after he served 26 years of a life sentence.
The 58-year-old was remanded to Perth ahead of a decision by the Scottish Prison Service.
He will be sentenced for the new offence, on summary complaint, on August 8.
In 2000, Mearns was on the parole board’s list of “12 most dangerous” criminals detained in Scotland.
In 1977, Ms Batchelor went for a carry-out meal and met a violent death at the hands of Mearns, a complete stranger.
The 19-year-old was found dying in a Dundee shop doorway after the attack.
When police found her, she had been stripped and badly beaten. She died on arrival at hospital.
Post-mortem tests showed death had been caused by head and sexual injuries.
Mearns, who had been drinking up until the time of the murder, later went to a public toilet to clean himself up.
The then 19-year-old was told by High Court judge Lord Wylie that the murder was “the most horrible I have come across in my experience”.
Section 16 of the Prisoners and Criminal Proceedings (Scotland) Act 1993 provides the sentencing court with the power, in addition to punishing him for the new offence, to punish an offender who has committed an offence following his early release from a sentence imposed by a court in Scotland.