A WOMAN who murdered a mother-of-two after a silly row has been jailed for life.
A trial heard how Lorraine Foy's teenage daughters saw their 36-year-old mother stabbed to death in a frenzied attack in Glasgow street on June 22 last year.
There had been a "shouting match" as Tracy Meikle, 33, stood at her first floor window in Cranhill, and Ms Foy stood in the street, accusing Meikle of head-butting a 14-year-old girl.
Meikle had been taking Valium washed down with Buckfast and cider, judge Lord Jones was told.
Ordering Meikle to serve at least 15 years before she can apply for release on licence, the judge told her he had read accounts from Ms Foy's daughters and other relatives on the impact of her death.
"The whole family has been devastated by the pointless murder," he said.
Lord Jones noted that background reports also said Meikle very much regretted what she had done.
Defence QC Gordon Jackson, pleading for leniency, said the murder "arose out of nothing".
Meikle could remember little of what happened, said the lawyer.
Mr Jackson added that Meikle had a history of being abused, broken relationships and drink and drugs.
But since she had sobered up in Cornton Vale she had become a pleasant and sensible young woman, which made the tragedy all the greater.
At her trial, Meikle claimed she had been acting in self defence. But a jury rejected her claim and found her guilty of murder.
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