18 years on Coulter pays price for murder
The man who bragged of getting away with the perfect murder has finally been brought to justice after nearly 18 years.
Ronnie Coulter, 48, made the boast in 1999 after being cleared by a jury of the murder of restaurant worker Surjit Singh Chhokar at Garrion Street, Overtown, in 1998.
But last Wednesday at the High Court in Glasgow after a high-profile double jeopardy trial Coulter was convicted of the murder.
The court heard that a row between Chhokar and Ronnie Coulter’s nephew Andrew Coulter over a stolen Giro cheque ended in his death.
Chhokar was angry because Andrew Coulter had stolen and cashed the £100 Giro and it was arranged that the two men would meet around 11.30pm on November 4, 1998.
The time was chosen because it was when Chhokar was expected to arrive home to his partner Liz Bryce after his restaurant shift.
Two other men agreed to go along with Andrew Coulter that night, - his uncle Ronnie Coulter and David Montgomery, who drove them there.
Andrew Coulter was armed with a homemade lead-filled bat and Ronnie Coulter had a knife.
When 32-year-old Chhokar got out his blue Ford Orion carrying a bottle of Irn Bru in one hand and a takeaway meal in a carrier bag in the other, he was confronted by Ronnie and Andrew Coulter and David Montgomery.
Andrew Coulter tried to hit him with the bat and Ronnie Coulter stabbed him three times. The fatal wound went straight through his heart causing him to bleed to death.
Ronnie Coulter was tried for murder and acquitted and, in 2000 Andrew Coulter and Montgomery were also tried and acquitted of murder.
During this trial Ronnie Coulter denied murdering Chhokar and blamed his nephew and Montgomery.
In evidence 35-year-old Andrew Coulter, who stabbed Patrick Kelly to death in September, 1999, just 10 months after the death of Chhokar while he was on bail denied murdering the restaurant worker.
Andrew Coulter said:“I never murdered Chhokar. Look at my previous. I’ve pleaded guilty to everything I’ve done.”
Andrew Coulter then gestured towards his uncle and said :“He can’t even look at anybody. I loved that guy, he was like a father to me, but then he tried to get me to take the blame for a murder I didn’t do.”
David Montgomery, 39, from Motherwell, told the jury he saw Ronnie Coulter punching Chhokar three or four times on the chest.
Prosecutor Alex Prentice QC asked:“You saw punches,”and Mr Montgomery replied:“Yes, by Ronnie. I think it was one hand.”
As Chhokar lay dying, Andrew Coulter and Montgomery drove off. Ronnie Coulter walked back to his flat at Caplaw Tower, Gowkthrapple.
On the way he dumped the murder weapon – wrapped in a black tammy – and placed it in a hollow tree. It was later moved and put in the foundations of one of the new houses being built in Smith Avenue.
Within hours of the murder , Ronnie Coulter had washed his and his nephew’s clothes clean.
The next day he gave his former girlfriend and the mother of his son Sandra Tierney a bag stuffed with the clothes and a set of knives with one blade missing to dispose of.
The ex-sister-in-law of Ronnie Coulter, Noreen McPolland , 54, was asked:“Did Ronnie Coulter ever say anything about the death of Surjit Singh Chhokar,”and replied:“He said‘I stabbed him. I stabbed the P*ki bastard..”
Ronnie Coulter’s sister Margaret Chisholm, 57, also told the jury that he had confessed to her.
She revealed that just hours after her brother was cleared of murdering Chhokar in 1999 he came to her home in Overtown, Lanarkshire.
Mrs Chisholm said:“He was sitting on the floor in the living room leaning against a radiator. He said‘I’ve just got away with the perfect murder.’”
In 2012 following the reform of the Double Jeopardy solicitor Aamer Anwar approached the Lord Advocate on behalf of the Chhokar family to request that the case be reinvestigated.