Two inmates die after contracting COVID-19

Two Perth Prison inmates have died after contracting COVID-19.

Murderer George Greenshields (68), jailed for slitting a man’s throat in Perth in 2006, died on Thursday with fellow prisoner Alex Drysdale (65) passing away the following day.

A total of six prisoner deaths across the Scottish Prison estate have been linked to the deadly virus.

Greenshields was serving a life sentence, having been returned to jail for the knife assault on Perth man Neil Balfour in a Drumhar Court flat during a drinking session.

He had previously been convicted in 1988 of killing, dismembering, burning and burying a homeless man in Dennistoun before his release in 2005.

The fiend was released early in 2005 but found himself back behind bars just six months later when he slashed a man’s throat with a breadknife in a booze-fuelled attack.

Greenshields was convicted of murder at Glasgow High Court in July 1988 after hacking Mr Griffin to death then burning his body.

His breadknife attack on Neil Balfour 17 years later was so brutal that judge Lord Emslie had considered imposing a second life sentence.

But the judge said the protection of the public would be served by an eight-year minimum sentence as he would be recalled to serve his existing life sentence for the crime.