A CONVICTED murderer who escaped from a work placement scheme in Edinburgh after saying he was "going to do a runner" has been sentenced to a further 18 months in prison.
David Back 23, was working at the Broomhouse Centre from Saughton Prison in September.
He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2001 after being convicted of torturing and murdering James McArthur, 27, in Kirkcaldy, along with two other men, in June 2000.
At Edinburgh Sheriff Court yesterday Back, from Fife, admitted attempting absconding from his work placement. Back told a person he was working with at the Broomhouse Centre: "I am going to do a runner".
His remark was treated as a joke, but at lunchtime, it was discovered he had gone missing. He was recaptured five days later.
Defence agent James Litterick told Sheriff Charles Stoddart that Back had been 16 at the time of the murder and his two co-accused had been considerably older.
He had just turned 17when he was jailed for life. Mr Litterick said Back had never caused any problems in prison and had been making steady progress within the system.
He had been due to be considered for parole in 2008. Back, he added, had been under pressure to bring "things" into prison while out on work placement.
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