Teenager who murdered boy has jail term shortened

Justin McLaughlin was killed two days after his 14th birthday

A judge has reduced the minimum term an 18-year-old man will have to serve after he was found guilty of murdering a schoolboy at a Glasgow railway station.

Justin McLaughlin, 14, died in October 2021 after being stabbed in the heart by Daniel Haig, who was 16 at the time, at High Street Station.

Haig was given a life sentence for the crime by judge Lord Clark at the High Court in Edinburgh in August 2023.

He would have been eligible for parole after serving a minimum of 16 years, but this has now been reduced to 13 years.

Haig's lawyers told the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh that the initial sentence was “excessive”.

Defence advocate Michael Meehan KC told appeal judges Lady Dorrian, Lord Matthews and Lord Pentland that their colleague Lord Clark had made mistakes in how he decided to sentence Haig.

Daniel Haig was found guilty of murder after a trial

Mr Meehan argued that the judge should have taken the sentencing guidelines on young people into account when sentencing Haig.

In a written judgement published on Thursday, the appeal court upheld the submissions made to the court by Mr Meehan.

Lady Dorrian - who delivered the judgement - wrote that she and her colleagues had evidence before them about Haig’s background that Lord Clark did not have.

She said this information showed that Haig had good prospects of being rehabilitated and he should be given a 13-year-long minimum term.

She wrote: “Having regard to all the known factors, and nevertheless fully acknowledging the dreadful nature of the offending, we are satisfied that the punishment part was excessive.”

However, Lady Dorrian noted that there was no guarantee that Haig would be released from custody at the end of that term.

During the trial at the High Court in Glasgow, the court heard Haig had become involved in a scuffle with Justin and a group of his friends at the railway station on 16 October 2021.

The teenager pulled a knife out of his bag and was seen on CCTV chasing the group.

Justin tripped and fell before Haig caught up and stabbed him.

Haig told the trial he had a knife in his rucksack for "protection" after claiming to have been attacked the day before.

He also said he had not intended to kill the 14-year-old.

'Devastating effect'

The court previously heard that Justin, from Coatbridge in North Lanarkshire, had begged for his mother after being attacked.

He was taken to hospital but never recovered.

Haig admitted knifing Justin but had denied murder, however he was found guilty following the trial.

The judge said the murder had a "devastating effect" on the victim's family.

Passing sentence, Lord Clark said: "They were all running some distance away from you, but Justin McLaughlin tripped and fell.

"You ran right up to him and as he was standing back up you stabbed him. The knife went right through his heart."

The judge added that it was "deeply disturbing" to see gang activity still happening in Scotland.

Daniel Haig said he fled the railway station before disposing of the knife in a bin

In the latest judgement, Lady Dorrian noted that evidence showed that Haig had become “normalised” to violence through his upbringing.

She wrote: “The information now available to the court shows exposure to extreme domestic violence from an early age, first as a witness, later as a victim, and thereafter as a perpetrator.

“The appellant’s mother is reported to have stabbed his father and, on a later date, to have threatened the appellant with a knife while he was holding his younger sibling.

“The older relative, association with whom seems to have triggered an escalation in the appellant’s behaviour, is alleged to be involved in criminal behaviour in the east end of Glasgow and to have links to serious and organised crime."

Lady Dorrian said Haig's father and uncle were both serving lengthy prison sentences for violence, and an older maternal cousin was serving a prison sentence for murder.

“It is clear that the appellant has grown up in a familial environment in which the use of violence, including the use of weapons, has been normalised," she added.

Lady Dorrian also noted how there were signs of “positive engagement” between Haig and staff at St Mary’s Kenmure secure unit - the institution where he was placed following the sentencing.

She wrote: “There are good indications throughout the material that the appellant is a young man with some potential.”