A FORMER playwright who murdered a man before stabbing himself in a bid to evade justice has been jailed for life.
Thomas Sellar, 38, stabbed Jamie Walsh during a confrontation in Greenock, Inverclyde, in September last year.
A jury heard how he then plunged the blade into his own body. He claimed that Mr Walsh had stabbed him during the incident.
However, police uncovered enough evidence to show that Sellar had been lying about what had happened.
At the High Court in Edinburgh, judge Lord Ericht ordered Sellar to serve a minimum of 18 years in prison.
It also emerged that when Sellar was 19, he had written a play called Dead Boys Tales, about the problems teenagers in Greenock had in staying away from drugs and crime.
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The play was performed in his home town in 1997. Its cast was made up of young people with no acting experience and who were struggling with narcotic addictions.
Defence advocate Herbert Kerrigan QC told the court that Sellar failed to heed the messages contained within the theatrical piece.
Mr Kerrigan told court that his client had six previous convictions for knife possession and assault.
The lawyer added: “He did not carry out the intentions of the play which was to divorce himself from the criminal environment which he was in.”
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Sellar, a prisoner of HMP Low Moss in Bishopbriggs, East Dunbartonshire, was convicted in June of murdering Mr Walsh on September 10 last year.
He had claimed he was acting in self-defence because Mr Walsh was part of a group of youths who had launched an attack on him.
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