Former Govanhill Housing Association chairman John McLardie was killed by a young thug in a shocking street assault that left him with injuries that proved fatal.
On January 23, 20-year-old Ethan O’Kane was sentenced to six and a half years in jail for the culpable homicide of John.
The 68-year-old was attacked on Glasgow’s Victoria Road in April 2023, in an altercation with a group including O’Kane.
Tragically, McLardie, an uninvolved passerby, was pushed and punched in this scuffle, causing him to hit his head on the pavement.
Despite medical efforts, he died on December 31, 2023.
O’Kane reportedly left the scene promptly after the attack, neglecting the needs of his “stricken” victim.
This act, described by the judge at the High Court in Glasgow, Lord Arthurson, as having “terrible and fatal consequences”, led to McLardie spending his final days bedbound and reliant on care home staff.
Though O’Kane denied having punched him, implicating another man known only as “ST”, he was ultimately found guilty after CCTV and social media messages were examined.
In another case, a 64-year-old former care home worker, Helen Gibson, was granted leniency by the law.
She was convicted on January 23 for assaulting Leo McGuigan, a 90-year-old dementia sufferer and ex-serviceman, at the Village Care Home in Cumbernauld on December 17, 2022.
Gibson’s actions, which included shouting, swearing at, and pushing Mr McGuigan, left the elderly man on the floor for nine hours amid a series of six 999 calls before he was taken to Glasgow Royal Infirmary.
Suffering from a fractured arm, Mr McGuigan remained in hospital, where his health deteriorated further, and he eventually died on January 4, 2023.
While Gibson was charged with culpable homicide, the jury instead found her guilty of assault to severe injury.
Lord Renucci at the High Court in Glasgow imposed a community payback order with 300 hours of unpaid work to be completed within 12 months, plus two years’ supervision.
He stressed that although Gibson was not to blame for the ambulance delay, Mr McGuigan would not have been on the floor had she not pushed him.
On January 22, 49-year-old former soldier George Kinnear was found guilty at Glasgow Sheriff Court of assaulting his 55-year-old sister Sharon with a framed picture of their deceased father shortly after his funeral.
The incident, which occurred at their mother’s home in Corkerhill, Glasgow, on June 20, 2025, followed a drunken argument about someone’s attendance at the funeral.
Three years earlier, Kinnear was jailed for 30 months for an assault with intent to rob at a convenience store.
In his recent case, the court heard that he approached his sister aggressively, tried to punch her, repeatedly hit her on the face, arm, chest, head, and neck, kicked her legs, and threw the picture at her.
Sentencing for this case has been deferred for background reports until next month by Sheriff Collette Gallagher.
Convicted sex offender Calum Lewsley, 31, admitted on January 21 to a distressing charge of raping a vulnerable 18-year-old he lured from the street into his Kirkintilloch home in East Dunbartonshire.
The young woman, reported as missing, was sitting on a bench near the Kirky Puffer bar on May 6, when Lewsley approached her, allegedly promising she could come to his house, charge his phone, and then contact the police.
Once in his home, he led her to his bedroom, where he proceeded to rape her.
After the assault, Lewsley phoned the police himself, referred to the young woman as a vulnerable missing person, and flagged down officers in the street.
Upon police interaction, the teenager then revealed she had been raped by the 31-year-old.
Already a registered sex offender for an earlier incident of molesting a 15-year-old, with previous convictions for sex offences, violence, and dishonesty, Lewsley has been remanded for sentence.
