I confronted escaped Carstairs killer Mone and told him ‘you’re a madman’
A FORMER senior police officer and politician has told how he confronted one of Scotland’s most dangerous killers, Robert Mone, and told him “you’re a madman”.
Graeme Pearson, the former Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency boss and Labour MSP, was tasked with escorting murderer Mone back to Scotland after he and fellow patient Thomas Mcculloch escaped from Carstairs State Hospital in November 1976.
Mone, 28, a former Gordon Highlander, who was in Carstairs for shooting dead a teacher, and Mcculloch, 26, spent weeks planning their escape with weapons they crafted, before leaving three people dead and at least three others injured.
A fellow patient and a nursing officer were killed during the escape from the high security hospital and a police officer was killed with an axe before the pair were captured near Carlisle following a manhunt across the Border.
Speaking in BBC Scotland series David Wilson’s Crime Files, to be shown tomorrow, Pearson, who was a member of the serious crime squad at the time, recalls being called to the scene and Mone’s calmness and lack of remorse after the spree.
He said: “Before we set off we were told we needed firearms and we understood then it was very serious.
“He seemed calm, he seemed composed and he didn’t seem at all affected by the events of the earlier evening, and he remained that way until we returned to Lanark police office.
“Any time I spoke to him, he gave fairly matter of fact replies and obviously didn’t feel intimidated.
“I think he understood what he had done, but he seemed to try to persuade me that it was inevitable -- that he needed to be part of the events of that night, because it was his intention to get out of Carstairs as an institution, and the events of that night would ensure he would never go back again.
“I was shocked by his attitude. I couldn’t believe that someone who had been involved in the occurrences of that night could sit with me in the back of a police car and be unaffected by the merciless way they murdered these people.
“Bear in mind that they had been preparing this event for some weeks, into months, and they knew they would need to murder people to escape from Carstairs.”
Mone escaped with Mcculloch and embarked on a murderous rampage, killing PC George Taylor with an axe. Mcculloch also killed a male nurse and a patient.
For his part in the killings, Mone was deemed a risk to national security and jailed for life but in 2002 his sentence was revised to 25 years.
He was eventually allowed out in 2007 on unsupervised day release, work placements and home visits following the end of the punishment part of their sentence to help determine how they will react to normal society.
Mone was originally sent to Carstairs for shooting dead pregnant teacher Nanette Hanson at a Dundee school in 1967.
Carrying a shotgun, Mone entered a girls’ needlework class at St John’s School and subjected the 14- and 15-year-old pupils and Ms Hanson to a 90-minute ordeal before shooting the teacher dead.
He raped one girl and sexually assaulted another. His motive was apparently revenge for being expelled from the school three years earlier.
While serving his life term in 1995, Mone had six months added to his sentence for attacking a fellow inmate with a pot of boiling water.
In the TV programme, leading criminologist Professor Wilson and his guests try to understand what could motivate a person to commit a mass killing. Mr Pearson examines
Mone’s motives and recalls the killer’s response.
He said: “I said to him, ‘you’ll be going back to Carstairs of course’ and he said ‘No, I don’t think so’.
“He indicated it was his view the authorities would never place him back in Carstairs and that by obtaining a prison sentence he would have a date of release marked against his name, and he would never have had a date of release from Carstairs.
“I had said to him, ‘It seems to me you have proved that you are mad -- only a madman could do the things that you’ve done tonight and sit calmly’.”
Only a madman could do the things that you’ve done tonight and sit calmly