Father wants ‘evil’ killer to die in jail
THE father of murdered Irish student Karen Buckley has said he hopes her killer will die in prison.
Alexander Pacteau, above, hit Ms Buckley at least 12 times with a spanner within 20 minutes of meeting her outside a Glasgow nightclub in April. He then put the 24-year-old’s body into a bath of caustic soda in an attempt to cover his tracks – a move reminiscent of a scene from US TV show Breaking Bad. After he pled guilty to murder at the High Court in Glasgow yesterday, it emerged he was cleared of attempted rape in 2013.
Pacteau, 21, from Glasgow, faces a mandatory life term when he is sentenced on September 8.
Ms Buckley’s father John said: “There are no words to describe what we went through. He is truly evil and we hope he spends the rest of his life behind bars.”
PRIVATELY educated Alexander Pacteau was 17 when he left school and set up his own furniture business.
Within months, his business dream was in tatters and he was in a coma for several weeks after a car accident.
Pacteau, who suffered a broken hip and ribs, was unable to walk for six months after the crash in mid-2012.
He could not work and was “too embarrassed” to tell his family that money was tight so the former Kelvinside Academy pupil devised a plan to forge bank notes worth £6,000.
He was caught by police before he had the chance to spend the notes and pleaded guilty at Glasgow Sheriff Court to printing £20 Royal Bank of Scotland notes in March 2014.
His unsophisticated moneyprinting scheme is Pacteau’s only previous conviction – he was earlier cleared of the attempted rape of a woman off Woodlands Road in the early hours of November 27, 2011.
He denied the attack, which allegedly happened when he was 17, and was found not guilty by a majority verdict at the end of the five-day trial in 2013, after recovering from his crash.
He was sentenced at Glasgow Sheriff Court for printing the fake notes and given a community payback order of 225 hours of unpaid work.
In court, he was described as a young man “from a good family” – with no hint of the violent killer he would become.
His defence lawyer said: “The root of this offence goes back to 2011 when Mr Pacteau was 17, he left school and embarked upon his own business enterprise with an online furniture business.
“He told me he felt ashamed that he had to sign on for benefits despite his injuries and circumstances.
“He put on the pretence he was running his own business again, successfully.”
During that hearing, the court heard Pacteau intended to restart his furniture business. He later moved into the “courier business” but is understood to have been unemployed when he killed the Irish nurse.
In a separate case this year, the former partner of Pacteau’s mother Noreen was convicted of domestic abuse against her.
Ministry of Defence police sergeant Andrew Richardson, who won medals guarding Britain’s nuclear submarines, avoided jail after Sheriff Gillian Wade QC praised his police record, sparking criticism from Scottish Women’s Aid.