A MAN has been convicted of the murder of the brother of one of Glasgow's most notorious gangsters.
Thomas Main, 41, was sentenced to life imprisonment and ordered to serve at least 17 years and six months behind bars for killing 55-year-old Francis McGrow - the brother of Tam "The Licencee" McGraw, who died in 2007.
The High Court in Glasgow heard that Mr McGrow was stabbed in the back three times by Main, who described himself to police as his "best pal".
Then as Mr McGrow lay helpless on the floor of his living room at Hermiston Road in Springboig, Glasgow, Main knifed him a further 37 times.
No motive for the killing came out in court.
Yesterday, judge Lord Armstrong told Main: "This was a vicious attack when your victim was lying on his back and unable to defend himself. There are no reasons which could possibly justify the taking of another's life as you did."
The court heard that Mr McGrow, who had changed his name from McGraw, was murdered between October 26 and 27 last year. Main was out of bail at the time and Mr McGrow had allowed him to stay in his home.
After carrying out the deadly attack Main disposed of the knife and tried to hide his jeans, which had Mr McGrow's blood on them.
He then travelled into the city and made a call from a phone box in Gallowgate, Glasgow, saying that Mr McGrow had been murdered.
Advocate depute Adrian Cottam, prosecuting, told the court Main had a number of convictions for dishonesty and drugs offences.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article