World’s End killer hit by series of strokes

Evil serial killer Angus Sinclair has suffered a series of strokes behind bars, The Sunday Post can reveal.

The murderer has had an emergency button strapped to his wrist so he can summon guards in the event of another episode.

It is claimed the strokes have been triggered by “stress” caused by the ongoing police probe to determine the extent of his twisted behaviour.

Sinclair was found guilty in November last year of the notorious World’s End murders.

However, detectives have long since suspected the con who is nicknamed Santa Claus because of his long, white beard of further as yet unsolved killings.

Cold case detectives are trying to link Sinclair to the slayings of Anna Kenny, 20, Hilda McAuley, a 36-year-old mum-of-two, and 23-year-old nurse Agnes Cooney.

A jail source revealed the prisoner locked up at Glenochil Prison has been “losing his balance and falling down like a drunk man” because of the attacks.

“He has an emergency button strapped to his wrist so, if he has a turn, he presses it and the screws come straight to him,” the source said of the killer, who also receives medication for a heart condition.

“They’re only minor strokes but they have left him kind of ruined,” the insider added.

“I don’t think he cares that he will spend what’s left of his life behind bars. He’s a broken, empty shell of a man.”

Sex-obsessed Sinclair, 70, was found guilty last year of the 1977 rape and murder of 17-year-olds Christine Eadie and Helen Scott after a night out at Edinburgh’s World’s End pub.

Branded a “dangerous sexual predator” by Judge Lord Matthews, he was jailed for life to serve at least 37 years.

His conviction the longest sentence ever handed down in a Scottish court was only possible after a change to the double jeopardy law which allowed Sinclair to be tried twice. He is the first offender to be found guilty following the legal reforms.

Sinclair, who was already serving two life sentences for a litany of crimes, including murder, rape and sexual assault has been described as “one of Scotland’s most prolific criminals”.

The jury at the High Court in Livingston took two hours to conclude that Sinclair murdered the two 17-year-olds. He carried out the crimes with accomplice Gordon Hamilton, his late brother-in-law, who died in 1996 without facing justice.

Sinclair, who evaded conviction at the widely criticised first trial in 2007 due to insufficient evidence, remained impassive throughout the five-week trial and admitted he did not care about the girls who he saw as “objects to be used”.

Last night, the retired detective who led a case that saw Sinclair jailed for life in 1982 after a series of 11 sex attacks said he “deserves a lot more than a stroke”.

Former Strathclyde CID boss Joe Jackson said: “I met a lot of nasty, psychopathic people through my job but Sinclair was up there with the worst.

“He subjected kids and girls to horrible crimes with no remorse.

“I doubt the stress of his crimes are catching up with him in my experience he was a horrible man with no conscious.

“He was very brutal and I hope he dies in a very brutal way.”

Sinclair, who has spent 50 years of his life in jail, had been banged up in notorious Peterhead Prison, where he landed a job running the kitchens.

He was moved to Glenochil, which houses high, medium and low-risk male prisoners, two years ago after Peterhead in Aberdeenshire was closed.

Our source, a visitor to the prison in Clackmannanshire, said Sinclair had become accustomed to a cushy life behind bars.

He added: “The way he will see it, he has all the comforts as though he were at home.

“He has free showers, his laundry is done and he gets good regular meals.

“He gets to go up to the top landings to visit his mates every couple of days.

“He gets special treatment and has done for a long time. Because he’s been in so long, he’s pals with a lot of the screws.”

But despite Sinclair’s relatively charmed prison existence, the source revealed he had “aged years” while waiting for last year’s World’s End trial.

“Then he was tipped off that the police were wanting to question him about some other unsolved murders of women about that time,” he said.

“The stress and worry have caught up with him over the years.”

Sinclair is using taxpayers’ cash to try to overturn his conviction for raping and murdering Christine Eadie and Helen Scott.

Legal experts have estimated that the legal battle could cost taxpayers up to £1 million.

Last night, former Lothian and Borders Deputy Chief Constable Tom Wood, who was involved in the hunt for Sinclair, said he had never “shown a shred of remorse” for any of his sickening crimes.

“He is a disgusting human being,” said Mr Wood, who wrote the book The World’s End Murders: The Final Verdict.

“The reality of the crimes for which he has been convicted; the murders and the serious sex assaults on young children alone shows what an utterly despicable person he is.”

Sinclair is among a growing number of elderly lags putting huge pressure on Scotland’s jail system.

The latest figures reveal there were 746 inmates over the age of 50 in Scottish jails in 2014 a 93% increase compared to 387 in 2001.

A spokesman for the Scottish Prison Service said it would not comment on individual prisoners.

“Due to an ageing prisoner population SPS have introduced healthcare measures to assist elderly prisoners which reflect assistance available in the community,” she said.

The vile killers who have been caged for decades

Angus Sinclair is one of Scotland’s longest serving jail inmates.

He was convicted last year of the 1977 World’s End murders but has been in jail since 1982 when he was caged for the rapes and indecent assaults of 11 boys and girls.

He was previously jailed for culpable homicide for the sexually motivated killing of seven-year-old Catherine Greenhill in Glasgow in 1961 and served six years.

In 2001, he was retrospectively found guilty of raping, strangling and stabbing 17-year-old Mary Gallacher in 1978 and was given a second life sentence.

Sinclair got a third life term last year for raping and murdering Christine Eadie and Helen Scott after abducting them from Edinburgh’s World’s End pub.

He was given a 37-year minimum tariff the longest imposed by a Scottish court.

Other prisoners serving long sentences include triple killer Gordon Livingstone, 61, who stabbed his parents and girlfriend to death in 1987.

Livingstone was given a minimum period of 15 years before being eligible for parole but has served 28 years for the murders in Blairdardie and Anniesland, Glasgow.

The longest-serving prisoner convicted in Scotland is Robert Mone, who was sent to prison in 1977 for his part in a breakout at Carstairs State Hospital.

Mone and accomplice Thomas McCulloch freed from jail in 2013 killed a patient, nurse and police officer before being apprehended.

Mone had been sent to Carstairs in 1967 for taking a pregnant school teacher and her class hostage for more than an hour before shooting the teacher dead and raping one of the pupils.

In England prisoners on so called whole life tariffs include serial killer Dennis Nilsen, Peter Sutcliffe, who was convicted of killing 13 women from 1975 to 1980, and cop killer Dale Cregan.

A triple killer’s challenge to his whole-life prison sentence is to be re-heard by the top European judges in Strasbourg, it was revealed in June.

Arthur Hutchinson claims that his whole-life sentence is a breach of his human rights. The claim will be re-considered after being referred to the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

Retrial ended 800-year-old law

The World’s End case made legal history as Sinclair became the first person to be retried and convicted under new rules.

The remorseless rapist and murderer believed he had got away with the slaying of two 17-year-old women.

In 2007 a packed courthouse watched as Sinclair stood trial for raping and murdering Helen Scott and Christine Eadie.

But the trial sensationally collapsed amid outrage that vital evidence was not put to the jury.

The judge, Lord Clarke, threw out the Crown’s case, saying there was nothing to link Sinclair to the murders.

Advocate depute Alan Mackay failed to tell the jury Sinclair’s DNA had been found on tights used to strangle Christine.

At the time there was no prospect of a re-trial because of the 800-year-old Double Jeopardy rule, which prevented someone standing trial twice on the same charge.

MSPs demanded then First Minister Alex Salmond change the rule, so defendants could be re-tried if significant new evidence came to light.

Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland successfully used Sinclair’s retrial as a flagship case for the new legal principle.

Lord Matthews described Sinclair as “a dangerous predator, capable of sinking to the depths of depravity”.

In May, it emerged the Criminal Appeal Court granted Sinclair leave to challenge the verdict and sentence. The case could push his taxpayer-funded legal aid bill to more than £1 million.