I see thereâs a bit of karma today:
3 October 2006
SECTARIAN KNIFE THUG FOUND DEAD
Cops launch probe
A THUG was found dead last night just yards from where he slashed a Celtic fanâs throat in a sectarian attack nine years ago.
Thomas Longstaff was jailed for 10 years in 1998 for the attack on Cambridge student Sean OâConnor. Police were refusing to say whether they were treating Long staffâs death as suspicious.
Forensics experts were on the scene after police cordoned off the lane leading to the close where the body was discovered. Locals and relatives of the dead man gathered at the street. Relatives at the scene were too distraught to speak about his death.
A spokes man for Strathclyde Police said: "We can confirm that the body of a 34-year-oldman was found at 7.45pm in Landressy Street in the Bridgeton area. âInquiries are ongoing and a post mortem will be held in due course to establish the cause of death.â
In 1997, Longstaff assaulted teenager Sean on London Road, near Landressy Street. He was found guilty of attempted murder after attacking Sean, then 19, as he walked to a bus following a Celtic match.
The court heard at the time that Sean, of Donegal, Ireland, heard someone call him a âFenian b*****dâ. He was confronted by a man who aimed what he thought was a punch at him, then ran away.
When Sean put his hand up to his neck, his fingers disappeared almost to the knuckles in a gaping wound just under his jaw. The attack scarred him for life. Longstaff denied the attack and said he could not remember where he was the day it happened.
He was found guilty of attempted murder and sentenced to 10 years.
The original story:
3rd Dec 1998
The strange case of Thomas Longstaff
By Fern Lane
A legal case involving sport, sectarianism and a stabbing in which a young Celtic fan almost lost his life came to a conclusion last week when Rangers supporter Thomas Longstaff was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to ten yearsâ imprisonment.
A year ago Celtic fan Sean OâConnor was attacked as he left Celtic Park after a game. What followed was a series of bizarre and suspicious twists in the case before justice was finally done.
At the time of the incident in November 1997 the Glasgow police did not take witness statements from the dozens of people at the scene of the attack and officers arriving immediately afterwards refused to help Sean to hospital - he was bleeding profusely from the gash in his neck. Then the force, right up until the verdict, denied in the local press that the attack had been motivated by sectarianism.
After an anonymous tip-off from someone who heard Longstaff boasting about the attack, the police arrested him and charged him with attempted murder. But then they informed Sean that they would not be proceeding with the case because one witness who was with Sean at the time, Patrick Keenan, could not be located. Still no other witnesses were approached.
Bizarrely, they then took Longstaff into protective custody - because of a non-existent IRA threat against him - where he remained for almost a year. The police suggested to Sean and his solicitor that that was essentially the end of the matter.
However, some weeks ago Patrick Keenan reappeared in Glasgow, and Sean was given just two daysâ notice by the authorities that Longstaff would, after all, stand trial.
Longstaff was defended by Donald Findlay QC, Deputy Chairman of Rangers and senior Orange Order official in West Scotland.
As Sean sat in the public gallery after having given evidence, the father of the notorious sectarian murderer Jason Campbell, who himself has a previous UVF conviction, came and sat silently beside him as the court heard that Campbell and Longstaff were in fact close friends.
Findlay also defended Campbell at his trial for the murder of a Catholic and he asked the judge in this case to move the trial outside Glasgow so that the jury ``would not connect the two casesââ.
Sean, who had travelled from the south of England and could not stay to hear the verdict, approached a court police officer to ask for a telephone number where he could ring to find out the verdict. The officer duly wrote down a number for him. The following day Sean rang the number and was greeted with a recorded message giving him information on Rangersâ recent result and forthcoming fixtures.
The number was that of Rangers `Club Callâ.
The experience has left a sour taste for Sean rather than the relief he should have felt on seeing the man who tried to murder him locked up. Indeed, he says the trial has left him more shaken than the attack itself. He says; `Of course, I always knew there was a lot of UVF support and sectarianism in Glasgow, particularly around Rangers, but I know now that I really didnât realise just how deep it goes. Up until the trial I would still have felt OK walking around Glasgow in my Celtic shirt, but thatâs changed now; I wonât do it so easily after this experience.ââ
And to think thereâs still people who believe Celtic and Rangers and their respective supporters are two sides of the one coinâŚ
