Consultant with firearms and hit list of ‘bad guys’ jailed for 12 years
● Former A&E doctor found with guns, pistols and 1,500 live bullets
A former A&E doctor who stockpiled an arsenal of weapons and made an “assassination list” of colleagues he blamed for his dismissal has been jailed for 12 years.
Dr Martin Watt, 62, was found with three Skorpion sub-machine guns, two Valtro pistols and 1,500 live bullets at his house in Cumbernauld, North Lanarkshire, last year.
The former NHS consultant had also made a list of staff at nearby Monklands Hospital who he believed were responsible for getting him sacked in 2012, titling it “bad guys”.
Watt, whose marriage broke down at about the same time as he lost his job, was found guilty of possessing firearms with intent to endanger life last month.
The Crown Office said he had “a clear plan in place to carry out a dreadful event”, after Glasgow’s High Court heard he had carried out shooting practice to improve his marksmanship.
When police searched his home following a tip-off, they found that he had also researched the best routes to the addresses of some of the people on his list and noted their car licence plates.
The former doctor bought his stash of decommissioned weapons legally from the Czech Republic, before reassembling them in his home workshop, the court heard.
Watt insisted that he had no intention of actually carrying out an attack using the weapons, claiming he had simply been trying to make himself feel better by compiling the list.
Defence QC John Scott said his client’s “30 years of significant public service in the NHS” should be taken into account for his sentencing, describing him as an “unusual person” to be in the dock.
Judge Lady Stacey told Watt: “I entirely accept you have served the community in the past. It is sad to see a man who has held the positions you have in this situation.”
But she added: “Nothing has been said that explains why you acquired a stock of weapons and ammunition.
“You are a well educated and intelligent man and must appreciate the law in this country around firearms is strict. These are lethal weapons.”