A man accused of murdering his brother-in-law and attempting to kill three other people during a stabbing and shooting spree in the Scottish Highlands was “fully in control” of his actions, a jury has been told.
In his closing speech at the trial of Finlay MacDonald, prosecutor Liam Ewing KC told the High Court in Edinburgh the 41-year-old was not “significantly impaired” by any psychological condition on the day he carried out the alleged attacks.
This was shown, he said, by the “targeted, controlled behaviour” he displayed after stabbing his wife “nine times” in their family home on Skye on the morning of 10 August 2022.
MacDonald’s lawyer disputed that there was any planning or premeditation involved in his client’s actions that day.
MacDonald is accused of murdering his brother-in-law John MacKinnon, 47, by repeatedly discharging a shotgun at him in the village of Teangue on Skye.
He is accused of shooting married couple Fay and John MacKenzie and attempting to murder them in the village of Dornie, Wester Ross, on the same day.
He is also accused of attempting to murder his wife, Rowena MacDonald, by repeatedly stabbing her in the village of Tarskavaig, on Skye’s Sleat peninsula, also on 10 August.
In addition, MacDonald faces a charge of possession of a shotgun “with intent by means thereof to endanger life”.
He denies all the charges against him and has lodged a special defence against the murder charge, claiming his “ability to determine or control his conduct was substantially impaired by reason of abnormality of mind”.
A judge said he could be convicted of an alternative charge of culpable homicide if the jury believed his defence of diminished responsibility.
‘Mildly flirty texts’ triggered violence, jury told
Mr Ewing told the jury that after stabbing his wife, MacDonald had been able to get into a car with a shotgun and “400 cartridges”, drive to two different houses some miles apart and select his “victims”.
He said that, along with the fact the attacks lasted as long as they did, were “inconsistent with mental disorder and significant impairment”.
He added: “The prosecution position is the evidence of what the accused did after the stabbing of his wife shows he was fully in control of and able to determine his actions.”
The advocate depute also pointed out no mention was made of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on MacDonald’s medical records, which the court heard was linked to an alleged assault by his brother-in-law in 2013, until 2022.
He added that people around him, including his wife, were not aware of it, despite Mrs MacDonald saying her husband “spoke about his health every day of his marriage”.
The prosecutor also pointed out many people are on the autism spectrum and many people “discover unfaithfulness”, but they do not act as MacDonald reportedly did.
He also said there was no evidence MacDonald’s attack on his wife was “provoked by the discovery of sexual infidelity”, saying it was instead triggered by “mildly flirty texts” that included mention of his wife’s desire to leave him.
Read more from the court case:
Wife of accused tells court about knife attack
Defendant claimed osteopath ruined his life
Woman ‘feared she and husband were going to be killed’
Murder accused felt ‘humiliated’ by brother-in-law
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‘He’s not a lot of people’
MacDonald’s lawyer Donald Findlay KC agreed his client had targeted specific people in his attacks but said this proved he had not gone on a “killing spree”.
In his closing speech, he said MacDonald’s actions were the result of long-standing psychological conditions – including autism, PTSD and personality disorder – coupled with a number of events that “came crowding in as we approach 10 August”.
These were said to have included an increasingly difficult relationship with his wife, an osteopath treatment that left him in severe pain, and his discovery of a “pattern” of “flirty” late-night and early-morning text messages on his wife’s phone between her and her boss.
He said his client’s autism meant he reacted very badly to the discovery of the messages.
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Mr Findlay said: “A lot of people would be very angry and they would demand an explanation. He’s not a lot of people. He’s autistic. He could not rationalise it the way other people can.”
He also said there was “no evidence of planning” involved in MacDonald’s actions, putting it to the jury that had the text messages “not existed”, none of the shootings would have occurred.
He said in stabbing his wife, MacDonald had “at his own hands been party to his whole world being destroyed”, and he had then set out to attack those whom he had “fixated” upon as the “cause of all his troubles”.
The trial continues in front of Judge Lady Drummond.
