THE family of a man stabbed to death on his way home from a night out yesterday appealed for the introduction of mandatory jail sentences for knife-carrying.
Damian Muir, 34, was stabbed eight times in July last year in a random attack as he returned from a football club presentation in Greenock.
His killer, Barry Gavin, was jailed for a minimum of 15 years. He was out on bail at the time of the kil
ling.
In June, Mr Muir's father, John Muir, handed in a petition to the Scottish Parliament demanding tough jail sentences for knife-carrying.
Yesterday, Mr Muir, 69, and other family members pressed their case to MSPs at the parliament's petitions committee.
He said mandatory sentences already existed for illegally held firearms and repeat drug dealers.
"If it can be done for that, surely people carrying illegal weapons on the streets should be penalised to the highest and most severe degree," he added.
His daughter, Vicky McGarrity, 43, said Damian would be alive if his attacker had been dealt with properly at an earlier stage.
"I hear a lot that Damian was just in the wrong place at the wrong time," she said.
"Well, no he wasn't – he was walking home. He was in exactly the place he should have been."
The committee agreed to discuss the petition and legal implications.
The full article contains 234 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
