City siege exhibition success helps break attendance records

A new exhibition on a dramatic Dundee hostage drama has broken an Angus museum’s attendance records.

A 12-bore double-barrelled shotgun used in the 1977 Claypotts siege was put on display in July at the Tayside Police Museum in Kirriemuir.

The shotgun had been in storage since the siege but was decommissioned and is being seen alongside archive photographs, production labels and testimonies.

Honorary curator Hamish Gray, a former police officer, said the story prompted a huge surge in visitor numbers which has “exceeded expectations”.

“We have seen 1,000 visitors through the doors up to the end of August which is a figure we’d usually expect in October,” he said.

“There has been a marked increase in visitor rates since the Claypotts Siege exhibition opened due to greater publicity and word of mouth. It’s all about old-style policing and the visitor numbers we have seen exceeded expectations.”

The gun involved had never seen the light of day since being confiscated from drug addict and double murderer George Morrison 42 years ago.

Morrison was wanted for a double murder in London and headed north with his girlfriend Elizabeth Green, who was thought to have family in the Montrose area.

On Friday October 28, he robbed a Montrose supermarket brandishing the shotgun stolen rom a gunsmith’s shop.

As customers walked in, Morrison panicked and rushed out for a getaway vehicle.

The couple stopped a Ford Capri driven by oil worker Lee Pascoe and his wife, June, from Auchmithie.

Police pursued it at highspeed through Angus before a Tayside Police car rammed it off the road at Claypotts.

Morrison then held Mrs Pascoe hostage in the car for six hours, with a shotgun pointed at her neck, before eventually giving himself up.

Police surround the car after it was rammed off the road.