Pub boss jailed for vodka sale murder

Published 19 Aug 2010 09:30

A PUB boss who stabbed a drinker to death in the middle of his packed bar was jailed for 18 years last week.

Neilston man John McCarron knifed William Auld a total of 16 times hours after an Old Firm game in January this year.

The 42-year-old brutally set upon the victim at the Cavendish Bar in Nitshill after stepping into a row over a bottle of vodka, the High Court in Glasgow had previously heard in July.

And if McCarron serves his full sentence he will be in his 60s before he is released.

McCarron, of Kirktonfield Crescent, denied being responsible for the bloody attack but prosecutors insisted it was he who ‘butchered’ the 45 year-old dad that Sunday evening.

Sentencing the murderer on Thursday, Judge Sean Murphy QC told McCarron: “You have been convicted of carrying out what was a vicious attack involving a lethal weapon.

“This had a tragic impact on the family of the deceased Mr Auld.

“The dispute which arose between you and Mr Auld over the sale of a bottle of vodka was the kind of situation which someone like you, with experience in the licence trade, should have been able to deal with.”

At an earlier hearing, a jury convicted McCarron of murdering Mr Auld following a two-week trial.

The court heard how the attack happened on January 3 at the bar which McCarron had been in charge of for the previous eight years.

Mr Auld had gone there having watched that day’s Old Firm match on TV at home.

Violence erupted around closing time when the girlfriend of Mr Auld’s son tried to buy a bottle of vodka.

Mr Auld tried to calm the situation but raging McCarron raced from behind the bar armed with a knife.

McCarron then repeatedly stabbed the man to death in front of stunned drinkers at the packed pub.

The killer claimed during the trial that Mr Auld had been the ‘aggressor’ and he had gone to remove him from the bar.

He said Mr Auld had fallen before a ‘mass rammy’ of other people began attacking the dad.

McCarron told the jury that the only time he handled a knife that evening was when he had confiscated one from a man who had visited his bar.

The court was also shown pictures of an array of lethal weapons found at the pub - including a baseball bat, machete and a hammer.

McCarron said some of them had been ‘lying about for years’ and that the machete was used to remove old mop heads.

Defence advocate Ian Duguid QC told the court that the vicious attack was ‘out of character’ for his client.

Mr Duguid added that McCarron had led a ‘comparatively stable lifestyle’.

After the killing the Cavendish Bar was the first pub to have its licence suspended for a year by Glasgow City Council.

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This article appeared in Barrhead News 18 Aug 10

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