Violent prisoner escapes while on work placement
A VIOLENT thug jailed for attempted murder absconded from an external work placement yesterday morning sparking a huge police hunt.
Barlinnie inmate Walter Bett was last seen at 8.25am yesterday. He was working in the vicinity of Crow Wood Golf Course in Muirhead, Glasgow, when he disappeared.
Bett was jailed in 2008 after slitting the throat of a 50-year-old man in Hamilton, Lanarkshire.
His victim, Alex Poole, almost died and was left brain-damaged and needing round-theclock care after being subjected him to an hour-long assault. Bett was previously jailed for culpable homicide in 1996.
The 39-year-old, of Hamilton, is 5ft 8in, of stocky build, with short receding brown hair and brown eyes. When last seen he was wearing a black padded jacket, striped navy top, blue jeans and black Nike trainers with red laces and soles, a grey baseball cap and carrying a rucksack.
Officers last night urged members of the public not to approach him if they spot him, but to contact police.
His disappearance comes in the wake of outrage over the case of Robbie McIntosh, who launched a savage assault on a woman while on unsupervised home leave from jail – 16 years after murdering another woman in a near identical attack.
McIntosh, 31, was just a few days away from a parole hearing that could have freed him when he pounced on dog walker Linda McDonald, 52, and beat her with a dumbbell.
The horrific attack happened in woods four miles from the spot where McIntosh’s first victim was murdered.
He was 15 when he stabbed civil servant Anne Nicoll to death on a hillside in Dundee in a cannabis-fuelled attack of ‘appalling brutality’ as she walked the family dog.
Last month, Mrs McDonald’s husband Matthew, 55, hit out at prison chiefs for letting him out on unsupervised home leave despite his record.
On October 25 at the High Court in Edinburgh, McIntosh admitted a charge of attempted murder and will be sentenced this month.