Medics clear of blame over knife killing

Asheriff has cleared Aberdeen psychiatric doctors of any blame in the case of a man who killed his best friend after saying he was the Devil.

David Reid, 48, was sent to the State Hospital in Carstairs, Lanarkshire, two years ago for stabbing Mark Johnston 120 times.

A fatal accident inquiry (FAI) was held at Dundee Sheriff Court earlier this year to establish if more could have been done to prevent the attack. In October 2017 Reid had sought medical attention for his schizophrenia and hallucinations in Dundee.

He was sent to Royal Cornhill Hospital in Aberdeen because there were no Tayside beds available.

He discharged himself against medical advice and staff could not stop him as he did not meet the criteria to be legally detained and was assessed as having sufficient insight to manage his illness.

Two days later on October 20 2017, he killed his best friend Mr Johnston, 53, from Montrose, in a frenzied knife attack in a flat in Nursery Road, Broughty Ferry.

In a judgment issued yesterday, Sheriff Jillian Martin Brown ruled available evidence showed medical staff did not make any errors in how they treated Reid.

She wrote: “It is not clear why David Reid’s mental state deteriorated after his departure from Royal Cornhill Hospital but that was not due to any failings on the part of the medical professionals who worked with him, nor the system within which they worked. I do not consider even if David Reid had been detained to allow for fuller assessment, that would have resulted in David Reid being detained for long enough such that the death of the deceased might realistically have been avoided.”

Reid and Mr Johnston had become friends while being treated at Murray Royal Hospital in Perth.

The judgment describes how police arrived at the Broughty Ferry flat after the alarm was raised by Reid’s sister.

He had phoned her and confessed he had stabbed his friend to death.

Reid told police: “I feel terrible.

“The Devil told me I had two hours to stab him.” The judgment states: “He stated that he had thought that the deceased was the Devil and that the television had told him to kill the deceased.”

Reid was found not guilty of murdering Mr Johnston in October 2017 on the basis he was insane at the time of the attack.

Judge Lady Rae sent him to Carstairs without limit of time.

BLOODY END: Mark Johnston, inset, was stabbed to death at a flat in Broughty Ferry.