More than £40,000 has been paid out to cover the legal costs of a murderer who stabbed and killed an Aberdeen man he met on Grindr.
Drink and drug-fuelled David Bain stabbed railway employee Clifford Anderson in the heart before abandoning the fatally-injured man in his flat on August 23, 2020.
Earlier this year, a judge handed the 28-year-old a life sentence with a minimum term of 16 years over the “brutal and callous” attack on Jasmine Terrace.
And it can now be revealed that, to date, more than £40,000 has been paid out in Legal Aid, a Scottish Government scheme to fund legal expenses for those who cannot afford it, to cover the costs of Bain’s defence.
Figures obtained through a freedom of information request show a total of £40,140.97 has been paid out.
‘You stabbed him once through the heart’
That includes £10,694.79 in solicitor fees, plus £2,138.96 VAT.
Another £23,526.66 covered the costs of counsel including solicitor advocate and VAT.
And a further £3,780.56 covered the cost of other outlays and VAT.
A spokeswoman for the Scottish Legal Aid Board said: “Legal aid is paid directly to lawyers to ensure that an accused person in serious crimes is professionally represented in court.
“If legal aid was not available in such cases the alternative would be the accused defending themselves. This would not be in the best interests of victims, witnesses or the criminal justice system.”
Sentencing Bain to life, with a minimum prison sentence of 16 years before being eligible to seek release, Lord Boyd of Duncansby told Bain at the High Court in Edinburgh: “Whether or not you will be released on bail will be a matter for the parole board.”
‘Your actions that night were brutal and callous’
The judge said: “In the early hours of the morning you arranged to meet Mr Anderson through a dating website and went to his house.
“You had consensual sexual relations with him following which you stabbed him once through the heart, as a result of which he died.”
Lord Boyd said that according to Bain he took two knives from a kitchen drawer with the intention of inflicting self-harm and was on the way out of the flat when Mr Anderson came up behind him and he then made a stabbing motion towards the victim.
The judge told Bain he had no reason to take the knives and no reason to fend off Mr Anderson, who he did nothing to help after the stabbing.
Lord Boyd told the former labourer and slaughterhouse worker: “Your actions that night were brutal and callous.”
Grandad passed away more than a year and a half after the incident
Meanwhile, it can also be revealed that the public paid almost £50,000 to cover the legal fees of Michael Scott, who was convicted of attempting to murder an Aberdeen grandad in a hit-and-run – and then subsequently cleared of murder when he later died.
Scott was found guilty in 2019 of attempting to murder Graeme Hardie by hitting him with his car outside the Staging Post pub in Bucksburn.
But Mr Hardie, who was left needing round-the-clock care at the specialist Chaseley Trust home in Eastbourne, passed away on March 5 2020 – more than a year and a half after the incident in July 2018.
Following his death, the Crown decided to prosecute Scott, 37, for his murder, but he was found not guilty by majority following a trial at the High Court in Edinburgh.
Scott was handed a 12-year jail term for attempting to murder Mr Hardie, and it is understood that conviction and sentence remains in place despite the not guilty verdict in respect to the murder charge.
Freedom of information data has revealed £49,860.47 was paid out to cover the cost of Scott’s defence over the course of both trials.
That includes £20,404.88 in respect of the initial attempted murder case.
A further £685.58 was spent covering expenses relating to the murder charge prosecution before Scott switched to a different firm and racked up another £28,770.01 covering fees, outlays and counsel.
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