The family of nurse Neil MacLellan were given a life sentence of grief when he was murdered by Carstairs axe maniac Thomas McCulloch 40 years ago today.
Inevitably, the anniversary of the horrific breakout brings their pain into sharp focus. And their agony is made much worse by knowing that McCulloch is a free man.
Neil’s son John, 59, and his mother Marion, 88, believe the killer should have died in custody.
Instead, the 68-year-old is married and living happily with his wife in Dundee.
Scotland, unlike south of the Border, does not allow “whole-life” sentences for criminals.
John said: “I note that English judges are quite free to slap down
full life sentences to violent offenders, who will basically never set foot in normal society again.
“I can’t for the life of me think that any of those getting such sentences are any worse than Thomas McCulloch, who has settled into a normal life. It is an affront to justice.
“For what he did to my father, he deserved the death penalty. He now lives at liberty and that can’t be right.”
Neil, 46, was butchered by McCulloch and his lover Robert Mone when they broke out of the State Hospital in Lanarkshire in 1976.
McCulloch attacked Neil’s head with an axe before killing patient Iain Simpson.
Outside the hospital, McCulloch and Mone killed policeman George Taylor and severely injured a second police officer and two workmen.
After they were captured, they were given the first whole-life sentences ever handed down in Scotland.
But in 2002, McCulloch used European human rights law to have his punishment term fixed at 30 years, making the murderer immediately eligible for parole.
The Scottish Parole Board gave the go-ahead for his release in 2013.
McCulloch went on to marry Susan Perrie.
John said Scottish killers should be liable for the same punishment dished out this month to Thomas Mair, who was given a full-life sentence for murdering Labour MP Jo Cox in Yorkshire in June.
Stephen Port, who murdered four men he met on dating sites, was given a whole-life term last week.
There are about 70 others in English who will die in prison.
John said: “I watched the case of the man who killed Jo Cox. To say he was more evil than McCulloch is absurd. Yet he will be treated far more harshly.”