JUDGE TELLS GUNMAN THAT ‘GERBIL’ WAS Killer given life ‘brutal’murder city gangster in

AMAN has been jailed for life after being convicted of murdering Glasgow gangland figure Kevin ‘Gerbil’ Carroll.

William Paterson, 35, hadd denied shooting the 29-year-old d dead in the Asda car park in n the city’s Robroyston area on n January 13, 2010.

He claimed he was elsewhere e at the time and incriminated six x other people. Paterson was s convicted of murder following a two-week trial at the High Courtt in Glasgow. He was told he must t serve a minimum of 22 years in n jail.

Judge Lord Armstrong told Paterson: “On the evidence this court has heard, this murder appears to have been premeditated, planned, carried out by you and others in the most calculated way. It was not a spontaneous event which happened on the spur of the moment, it was in effect an execution.”

The judge said Carroll was murdered in the “most vicious and brutal” way.

He added it was carried out in a public car park where “ordinary members of the public were going about their everyday business”

and “put at risk of gunfire”. The court heard th that t theth shootingh ti was carried id out t by two masked gunmen at lunchtime i n front of shocked shoppers.

It is not known if Paterson was one of the gunmen, or driving the Volkswagen Golf that was driven away from the Asda to Coatbridge where the weapons were dumped in plastic bags under shrubbery behind a library.

The getaway car was later found alight on a country road by a farmer in Glenmavis, North Lanarkshire.

The murder took just 25 seconds from start to finish and left Mr Carroll dead in the back of his black Audi A3 that was riddle dled with 13 bullets. Mr Carroll was described in court as “violent” by a former drug dealer, Steven Glen, who met him at the supermarket minutes before he was killed.

The court heard that when Mr Glen went back to his car after the meeting and began to leave he heard “bangs and cracks”.

Jurors heard how Paterson’s DNA was found on the handle of a plastic bag that one of the murder weapons was found in.

The DNA of another man, Ross Monaghan, who was cleared of the murder in 2012 and was known to Paterson, was found on the handle of the other gun.