Darren killer to serve at least 20 years

Jury takes only an hour and a half to find man guilty of fatal street stabbing

A man has been sentenced to life behind bars after being found guilty of murdering father-of-two Darren Adie on a Kirkcaldy street last May.

Gordon Coventry, of Overton Mains, Kirkcaldy, had denied deliberately assaulting the 42-year-old on May 28 at Spey Avenue, near its junction with Napier Street, by striking him on the body with a knife or similar instrument.

During his trial at the High Court in Dunfermline, Coventry confessed that he and Mr Adie had been involved in a struggle, but alleged Mr Adie had been the aggressor and had been stabbed “by accident”.

However, a jury of eight men and seven women took just an hour and a half to convict Coventry of murder, with Lord Uist ordering him to serve a minimum term of 20 years.

The court heard how Mr Adie was found bleeding to death at the side of the road on Tweed Avenue, having suffered a single six-inch stab wound to the left side of his chest which pierced his heart and lung.

CCTV footage played in court showed Mr Adie on nearby Overton Road, clearly unsteady on his feet, around half an hour before he was assaulted, and Coventry’s solicitor Gordon Martin argued it had been a drunken Mr Adie who had challenged his client in the street and that the victim had pulled out the knife.

However, the court also heard that, after the attack, Coventry discarded his clothes in woodland and disposed of four mobile phones and the knife.

A former friend of Coventry recalled how the accused had called Mr Adie a “beast” and a “grass” in the weeks before the stabbing, and later claimed Coventry had told him he was going to “do” Mr Adie days before his death.

One witness also said Coventry had appeared panicky the day after the murder, telling her there was “some heavy s**t going down” and that he was “going down for a long time”.

But a smirking Coventry later told her: “I’m not going to get caught, there’s no DNA.”