Daniel Gilfeather

Daniel Gilfeather was stabbed outside Kellys Corner Pub on Carrochan Road on 15 July 1991 which was Glasgow Fair Monday.

He was taken to the Vale of Leven Hospital but died seven hours later.

He had four stab wounds to his face and thigh.

A woman that worked in Express Bookmakers which was next door to Kellys Corner Pub said that she heard Daniel Gilfeather scream and said that when she looked out of the window, she saw Daniel Gilfeather with blood pouring from his leg and two men running away. However, she said that she could not identify them.

Two men were tried for his murder but acquitted. When the judge acquitted the two men, he said, 'I find that there is not sufficient evidence in law to justify a conviction and so I have decided to acquit the two men of the charges'.

The defence said, 'The Crown have not provided a scrap of evidence to show which of the two men, even if they were involved, actually inflicted the blows on Mr Gilfeather. There was no evidence of a knife being in the possession of either of the accused'.

The defence added that the Crown had only brought forward one witness, a woman, that had seen the attack on Daniel Gilfeather in the car park, and said, 'The witness said she saw two men fighting. She said that when they moved away there was another man lying on the floor. But she did not see a knife and she did not see the two men fighting with the third man at all. There is no suggestion, even allowing that one of the two men did the stabbing, that the other knew that a weapon was going to be used. If there is no evidence to say which of the men was responsible for the attack, then it is my submission that the two must be acquitted'.

The judge then said that the defence's submission was 'well founded'.

However, the prosecution noted that witnesses had seen Daniel Gilfeather and one of the men seconds before Daniel Gilfeather was slashed across the face and stabbed in the leg.

A large knife was found behind a wall in the car park and the police later found an ornamental dagger at the house of one of the men, however, forensic scientists could not link the weapons to the murder.

It was heard that when Daniel Gilfeather was first admitted to hospital that the doctors thought that his wounds were superficial, and they were bandaged.

However, it was later found that a wound to his thigh had severed a major artery. A surgeon said that whilst Daniel Gilfeather was admitted to the hospital at 5.30pm, he was not called to examine him until 10.30pm. He added that Daniel Gilfeather's chances of survival would not have been any less if he had been called earlier.

The surgeon said that he undertook emergency surgery, but that during the operation he realised that Daniel Gilfeather's condition was hopeless. He said that they had pumped 26 pints of blood into him, but he eventually died after they failed to halt his blood loss.

Daniel Gilfeather had lived in Haldane, Balloch.