Teen who stabbed promising young footballer in Baillieston has appeal rejected - but his sentence is cut

A teenage killer who stabbed a promising young footballer to death during a street attack had his jail sentence cut by appeal judges today. Lee McAulay was aged 16 when he fatally wounded Luke Wallace who died eight days later in hospital.

Luke, aged 16, suffered blood loss following damage to the femoral vein after he was stabbed in the groin by his attacker.

McAulay, now aged 18, was originally charged with murdering him but the Crown accepted that there had been provocation and reduced the charge to the lesser offence of culpable homicide during his trial at the High Court in Glasgow.

McAulay, who denied the offence, was unanimously found guilty of killing his victim at Glasgow Road, near to Maxwell Avenue, Baillieston, in Glasgow, by chasing after him and striking him with a knife. The attack occurred on June 17 in 2016 and the victim died on June 25 at Glasgow Royal Infirmary.

McAulay, formerly of Easterhill Place, in Glasgow, was also convicted of illegal possession of a lock knife on the day of the stabbing at ground near Mount Vernon station and in streets between there and Glasgow Road, Baillieston.

He was also convicted of attempting to defeat the ends of justice by washing clothing worn at the time of the crime with the intention of destroying evidence implicating him in the offence..

The judge at his trial, Lord Woolman, sentenced him to nine years detention following his trial last year. He took into account that one stab wound was involved and that the killer was a first offender. As McAulay was only 17 at the time he could not be identified at the time of the sentencing.

The trial judge also had regard to the gravity of the crime committed and the need to deter the carrying of knives.

But McAulay appealed against both his conviction and the sentence imposed on him. Judges at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh rejected the challenge brought against his conviction but reduced the term of detention.

The Lord Justice General, Lord Carloway, sitting with Lord Brodie and Lord Drummond Young, quashed the original sentence and imposed a term of seven years'detention.

Lord Carloway said: "The court is persuaded that having regard to the youth of the appellant at the time the sentence was excessive."

The senior judge said it could not be said that a nine year sentence was excessive in such circumstances for an adult offender.

He said the significant feature, and one which the trial judge had paid particular attention to, was that McAulay went into the public streets carrying a knife.

Defence solicitor advocate Ann Ogg told the appeal judges that McAulay had no history of carrying or using weapons and had expressed remorse and regret for the death of the other youth.

During the trial McAulay had claimed it was not his knife and the jury were told to acquit him if they believed him.

McAulay had been accompanying a girl he had met home and Luke, who played for Drumchapel Amateur Football Club, and was with another youth became involved in a confrontation.

McAulay claimed that he heard a knife drop and saw a silver blade and that he and the deceased went for it and he admitted "poking" him with it as they got up.

But the prosecution maintained at his trial that he had been carrying the knife prior to the attack and chased after Luke.

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