The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
MSP learnt stalker was jailed from newspaper
ATory MSP has revealed how he only learned a stalker who had threatened a Dunblane-style shooting at his home was jailed after a report in The Courier.
James Lynn-Wilson was jailed for three years in May after pleading guilty to two charges of threatening and abusive behaviour.
But Central Scotland MSP Stephen Kerr says the first he heard of the man’s conviction was when Dundee MSP Michael Marra expressed sympathy after reading about the case in The Courier.
Dundee-born MSP Mr Kerr told The Times he thought it “ridiculous” he had not been told of the trial or conviction.
“Through all of this, the court case, the referral for reports, the sentencing to the present day, nobody in the criminal justice system has spoken to us.
“And yet my colleague Michael Marra said it was terrible what me and Yvonne had to go through.
“When I asked him how he knew about it, he said he’d read it in The Courier. Nobody told us there had even been a court case.
“How can someone be arrested, tried, convicted for threatening to murder someone and that person doesn’t get a phone call or letter? It’s ridiculous.”
Lynn-Wilson was jailed for three years after pleading guilty and making a bizarre plea for the court to arrange for him to be put to sleep – understood to be a reference to euthanasia.
He asked the court to impose a Mappa (multiagency public protection arrangement) or “give him permission to go to Europe on a day appointed by the court and go for a long sleep indefinitely”.
Sheriff Simon Collins QC imposed the jail sentence and also issued an order banning Lynn-Wilson from contacting Mr Kerr, who was raised in Forfar, or his wife for 10 years.
He said: “I certainly cannot and will not authorise you to be removed to Europe to be put to a long sleep.
“Both these offences related to your continuing, and as far as I can see, obsessive, fixation on the harassment of Stephen Kerr and his family. It is a matter for which you were previously sentenced to 26 months’ imprisonment by the High Court.
“I’ve read the criminal justice social work report which suggests that you do not regret these offences and you have neither the intention nor the ability to modify your offending behaviour towards Mr Kerr and his family.
“You present a high risk of re-offending and a custodial sentence is inevitable, not just for punishment but for the protection of the public and Mr Kerr.”
The MSP is using his experience to back a bill by his Conservative colleague which calls for a greater focus on victims’ wellbeing.
He is also worried his family will not be informed when Lynn-Wilson is released from prison.
“People don’t have a lot of sympathy for politicians at the best of times, but I know from my constituency work both as a member of Westminster and the Scottish parliaments that this is not an unusual story.
“Victims are almost an afterthought.
“My colleague and friend David Amess was brutally murdered, and I’m not trying to say the cases are the same, but MPs and MSPs have a privileged position in life.
“I’m serving as an MSP and no one told me anything. So imagine what it’s like for a member of the public.”
“I’m serving as an MSP and no one told me anything