Jailed...but thug gets so much home leave his son doesn’t even realise he’s in prison!
A VIOLENT criminal was granted so much home leave his eight-yearold son had no idea he was in jail.
Gangland thug Allan Strachan was able to do the school run, throw birthday parties and even celebrate Christmas with his boy – despite being locked up for attempted murder.
Although he was considered a danger to the public, Strachan was allowed 17 spells of home leave during a two-year period while serving a seven-year sentence for a brutal, unprovoked attack.
The 35-year-old was able to persuade bosses at Castle Huntly open prison near Dundee to ‘stockpile’ his home leave to coincide with events in his family life.
The astonishing frequency of Strachan’s home visits came to light last week when he appeared at Perth Sheriff Court and admitted breaching a curfew.
Strachan was arrested on Boxing Day following several days on the run while on a ten-day home leave from Castle Huntly. However, he claimed he had been fleeing from armed attackers – and the sheriff took into account his previous ‘successful’ home visits.
Strachan’s solicitor David Holmes told the court: ‘This is a man who was on his 17th home leave. He had saved up this release. He has a young son and he and the child’s mother have managed to keep the fact he is serving a prison sentence from the child.
‘He’d had the leave held back so he could attend at Christmas, so it could seem normal to the child, who was eight years old.’
Strachan claimed that when he came home to Springburn in Glasgow he was set upon by two armed men, who he believed were linked to an attack that had left him badly scarred during his second home visit in 2015.
He managed to escape by hiding in the grounds of a nearby hospital then booked himself into a city centre hotel to avoid returning home. Mr Holmes said the two men knew where Strachan was supposed to be, adding: ‘He wasn’t able to pick up his son from school, which was something he had been looking forward to for weeks.
‘He is a man who wanted to adhere to the conditions of home leave and use it to keep some normality in his family life.’
Sheriff William Wood imposed a two-month prison sentence for the curfew breach but made it concurrent, which means it has no impact on Strachan’s scheduled release in December.
The sheriff said: ‘You have had 17 successful home visits, so you should have known how to get in touch with prison authorities, and known what your duties were.’
Strachan was jailed for seven years for attempted murder in 2010 after being found guilty of an unprovoked attack outside the High Court in Glasgow, captured on CCTV cameras.
Jurors unanimously found Strachan guilty after viewing footage of him and two other men kicking and stamping on 29-year-old William McAlear’s head.
Since then, he has attracted further four and six-month sentences for prison and drug offences, and Police Scotland warned the public to stay away from him when they issued an appeal to find him on December 22.
Numerous criminals were let out of Scotland’s prison estate over Christmas, including eight killers and 40 violent offenders.
A Scottish Prison Service spokesman said: ‘A rigorous risk assessment is undertaken prior to any offender being granted unescorted leave. The majority of these take place without incident.’
‘You should have known your duties’