Pair jailed for murdering man with machete in revenge attack

Stuart McGeachie was attacked near a pub in Rutherglen

Two men who murdered a man with a machete in a revenge attack have each been jailed for a minimum of 18 years.

Callum Summers, 29, and Craig McColl, 24, teamed up to target Stuart McGeachie near a pub in Rutherglen, South Lanarkshire, in October 2023.

The 38-year-old was killed by a single fatal blow and suffered catastrophic blood loss.

Summers was convicted by a jury at the High Court in Glasgow after McColl pled guilty midway through the case.

Lord Colbeck said: "That weapons such as machetes are in every day circulation is frankly difficult to comprehend.

"Their use in the streets of Glasgow are entirely unacceptable in a civilised society - here a man needlessly lost his life."

Prosecutor Bill McVicar said Summers and McColl had acted together, despite only a single blow being inflicted.

He said there had been bad blood - involving violence - between McColl, his father Hugh, Mr McGeachie and his brother Alexander.

Farmeloan Road in Rutherglen remained sealed off after the attack in October 2023

The court heard that on the day of the murder, the McGeachies were in Rutherglen when the killers went to McColl's home to fetch machetes.

Mr McVicar described it as an attack being made for "revenge, pure and simple".

The victim was struck in the neck outside the town's Victoria Bar, and staggered into the pub for help as the assailants fled the scene.

One of the killers was said to have later boasted that Mr McGeachie had been "chopped".

Summers fled to Leeds in Yorkshire and applied for a new passport claiming he had lost his previous one.

He was caught by police when he returned to Glasgow, while trying to get away by climbing out a window of a flat.