A KILLER who grunted with pleasure as he plunged a knife into the chest of a man screaming for mercy was jailed for life today.
Victim Michael Gardner, 33, fled from the 11th floor of a high-rise block of flats in Sighthill with "a fountain of blood" pouring from his naked torso.
He almost made it to the third floor, tearing his shirt off as he ran, before he collapsed and
died.
Body-builder Craig Bathgate, 44, who was under the influence of steroids and high on amphetamine reportedly said: "That's him done" before calmly picking up his can of lager and leaving Medwin House North.
Ordering him to serve at least 15 years before he can apply for parole, judge Colin MacAulay QC told Bathgate: "You were found guilty of having carried out a savage and brutal murder."
The judge continued: "You carried out a vicious and sustained attack on a stranger during which you ignored his pleas for mercy."
During a three week trial at the High Court in Edinburgh, Bathgate denied murder, trying unsuccessfully to blame another man.
The trial heard how last December 4, Bathgate visited his friends Simon Wallace, 34, and Wallace's girlfriend, Tina Allwood, 19.
They were described as drug abusers who also lived on the proceeds of petty drug dealing. Handyman Mr Gardner of Clovenstone Drive, Edinburgh, was their "wholesaler" the court heard and they owed him money.
Mr Gardner turned up at the Medwin House North flat demanding to see Mr Wallace, refusing to believe denials that he was not at home. He dialled Mr Wallace's mobile phone and heard it ringing.
Mr Gardner pushed his way into the flat and spoke to Mr Wallace. As he was leaving, Bathgate followed him onto the landing.
Tina Allwood told the trial she heard Gardner saying "Get your hands off me" then "Please don't. Please mate, please don't" and Bathgate "grunting."
Asked to describe the noise she said: "I cannot. It sounded like a grunting of enjoyment".
Bathgate returned to the kitchen of the flat for his can of lager with the veins standing out on his neck and his face red, she added. She also noticed a spray of blood on the sleeve of his hooded top.
Unemployed stone mason Philip Quinn, 38, told how he heard a noise in the common stair and a man ran past with no top on. "There was a fountain of blood coming out of his chest," he said.
The man was calling out "Phone the police, phone the police."
Mr Quinn said he thought he should try to give the running man first aid. But when he tried to catch him he slipped on the blood and knocked himself out.
Bathgate was caught three days later after a car chase – insisting that he had only made a dash for it because there were other warrants out for his arrest.
Today defence QC Mark Stewart said Bathgate was full of remorse for what had happened.
Edinburgh-born Bathgate who had been living in Lincolnshire and Leeds had returned to Scotland and was staying in the Murrayburn area of Edinburgh at the time of the murder.
The full article contains 537 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
