Why was screwdriver killer out on the street?

THE family of a solicitor murdered by a screwdriver-wielding teenager condemned the decision to let his killer roam the streets while under investigation for a knifepoint robbery.

Ewan Ireland, 18, who has a ‘significant history’ of violence, is the first offender convicted of murder after being ‘released under investigation’ by police without any restrictions.

He was yesterday jailed for life with a minimum term of 15 years for stabbing Peter Duncan, 52, through the heart in Newcastle.

In the months before the murder on August 14, Ireland was convicted of battery and released under investigation for a robbery at knifepoint. He was also on bail after pleading guilty to affray for threatening to slash a boy’s Achilles’ heel with a knife.

Ireland had more than a dozen previous convictions and had been sentenced to four months in a youth offenders unit in February.

On the day of the killing, Mr Duncan spoke to his wife Maria, 50, minutes before leaving work to catch a bus home.

Ireland, then 17, attacked him when they brushed past each other in a shopping centre.

After a confrontation in which Mr Duncan tried to defend himself, the teenager pulled out a 12in flathead screwdriver he had stolen minutes earlier and stabbed the solicitor in the heart.

Ireland protested innocence at the police station that evening, asking: ‘Murder, what murder?’ But he later pleaded guilty at a court hearing.

Friends and family sat in silence at Newcastle Crown Court as victim impact statements by Mr Duncan’s wife and eldest son, aged 15, were read out yesterday.

Mr Duncan’s family expressed anger at the decision to release Ireland under investigation.

The eldest son, who the family asked not to be named, said: ‘I am angry [Ireland] was out free and cannot understand why he wasn’t locked up. If he had [been], my dad would still be with us today.’

Mrs Duncan said: ‘The person who did this to Peter should never be allowed to walk our streets again. I will never come to terms with this.’

Ministers brought in new rules in 2017 to limit police bail to 28 days and stop officers taking months to decide whether to press charges.

‘Will never come to terms with this’