I’ve been jailed for too long, claims the depraved loner who killed nurse Karen
THE brutal killer of student Karen Buckley has lodged an appeal against his 23-year sentence, claiming it is too harsh.
Alexander Pacteau has made the plea after being jailed for the ‘senseless and motiveless attack on a defenceless young woman’.
The 21-year-old depraved loner bludgeoned Miss Buckley to death by hitting her 13 times on the head with a spanner after she accepted a lift home in April this year.
The former private schoolboy went on to dump his victim’s remains in a barrel filled with caustic soda at a farm on the outskirts of Glasgow.
He was jailed for 23 years at the High Court in Glasgow by trial judge Lady Rae.
But Pacteau is now appealing against the length of sentence. He also claims that the two-year reduction in his term for pleading guilty was too short.
It comes after the Crown’s handling of the case was questioned in court by Lady Rae.
The judge criticised the decision to drop a second charge against Pacteau, a move which could have cut his time behind bars.
Dumped his victim in a barrel of caustic soda
The second charge – of attempting to defeat the ends of justice – covered allegations that the killer tried to dissolve Miss Buckley’s body in caustic soda and hide her remains in a barrel at a farm.
Pacteau’s defence QC, John Scullion, had argued that Lady Rae should therefore not take into account anything the accused did to try to cover his tracks after the murder when determining the length of sentence.
Addressing the court, the judge said the Crown had ‘for some reason’ chosen not to seek conviction on that charge despite detailing in the narrative agreed with the defence ‘many factors which would have fully justified such a charge’.
The judge said: ‘I regret that the Crown has to some extent tied my hands in relation to this sentence.’
She added she had ‘never known a situation in which a judge has been invited to ignore significant material in an agreed narrative, deliberately put before the court, with the consent of both parties’.
Lady Rae said the sentence’s punishment part would have been 25 years, but for Pacteau’s early guilty plea, though she was only prepared to discount his term by two years due to the aggravating nature of his efforts to cover up his crime.
Pacteau’s defence team has not given specific details of the grounds yet, but lodged notice of appeal against the sentence to the Court of Appeal on September 16.
Miss Buckley, 24, had only been in Glasgow for three months after moving to Scotland to study for a masters’ degree in occupational health at Glasgow Caledonian University.
She was killed in Pacteau’s car almost immediately after leaving The Sanctuary nightclub in the city’s West End.
They had both been at the club, Pacteau – a former pupil at £11,000a-year Kelvinside Academy – with seven friends who booked a booth for £250, and Miss Buckley with her flatmates.
They are not thought to have spoken until both left the building shortly after 1am to go home.
Miss Buckley, who left her jacket behind at the club, was seen on CCTV talking to her killer in Glasgow’s Dumbarton Road.
It is believed he offered her a lift home and, trusting the kindness of a stranger, she got into his car, which drove off in the direction of her flat in the city’s Hill Street. The car stopped a mile away in Kelvin Way, close to Kelvingrove Park, where it was parked for 12 minutes and 46 seconds – during which Miss Buckley was kill ed. Pacteau grabbed her by the neck, tried to strangle her and used a foot-long spanner he took from the passenger footwell to strike her repeatedly over the head.
Defensive injuries on her arms suggested 5ft 3in Miss Buckley fought for her life, but was overpowered by her 6ft 4in attacker.
Pacteau, who also has a conviction for forgery, told police that his victim had gone home willingly with him, where they had consensual sex before she left at 4am.
In fact, Miss Buckley was already dead when he took her to his flat in Dorchester Avenue, Kelvindale, Glasgow.
The court heard Pacteau dumped her handbag in Dawsholm Park before covering her body in a sheet and hiding it in his bedroom.
He used his mobile phone to look up the properties of sodium hydroxide, a corrosive chemical also known as caustic soda.
He burned a mattress along with Miss Buckley’s clothes and other evidence. The killer later told police he had thrown the spanner he used as a murder weapon into the Forth and Clyde canal.
A spokesman for the Court of Appeal said: ‘Alexander Pacteau lodged a notice of intention to appeal against sentence on 16 September 2015.’
‘Second charge
fully justified’