SENTENCING STATEMENTS

Please be aware this statement contains graphic details of the offences which people may find distressing.

On sentencing, Lord Arthurson told Kennedy:

“Colin Kennedy, you have this morning on the unanimous verdict of the jury been convicted of what your own senior counsel described in his address to the jury yesterday as the brutal killing, in incredibly violent circumstances, of your long term partner, Ms Catherine Stewart, in her home at Torrance Avenue, Airdrie, on the morning of Sunday 4 July 2021.  Ms Stewart was aged 54.  She was the much-loved mother of three children. She was a grandmother. She was also a cancer survivor, who walked with the aid of a stick due to arthritis.  The jury in convicting you of the crime of murder has plainly rejected your contention that you suffered from diminished responsibility at the time of this crime.

In a later interview with the Crown forensic consultant psychiatrist who gave evidence in this trial, you stated that you had no plans to end your life until the day in question when you planned to kill Ms Stewart and then kill yourself, but that you could not go through with it, meaning killing yourself, while your daughter was present. I further note that prior to the murder you had expressed your wish to that family member that Ms Stewart was dead and that to another, only some three days prior to her death, you had expressly stated your intention to kill her. Crown counsel in his own address to the jury made it crystal clear that the Crown position was that this was a pre-meditated murder, driven by your anger and rage towards Ms Stewart.

On that Sunday morning, you stabbed her in the back with a kitchen knife with such severe force that the blade cut through a rib and entered her chest to penetrate her aorta, the main body artery, just above her heart.  You then proceeded, while she was on the ground, to inflict at least six stab wounds to the front of her chest, wounds of such severe force that they cut through multiple ribs, penetrated the sternum and entered the heart, right lung and liver of your victim.  You also stabbed her to the face, head and neck.  You inflicted a stab wound which went through her nose and upper jaw, and another penetrating wound to the scalp again with such severity of force that the broken tip of the bladed murder weapon used by you was found embedded in Ms Stewart’s skull. 

We know that your victim was conscious and capable of some purposeful activity after the infliction by you of the fatal stab wounds to her chest due to the multiple defensive wounds sustained by her to her hands and forearms. Your own daughter, who was in the house during your commission of this crime, pulled you out of the kitchen into another room. She left to alert a neighbour, but when she came back to the house she found that you had returned to the kitchen to resume your murderous attack upon Ms Stewart.   This witness described you lifting up your victim’s top as you knelt over her, and inflicting stab wounds directly upon her flesh. The consultant forensic pathologist who conducted the post mortem and gave unchallenged cause of death evidence agreed with the proposition put to her that your victim in effect drowned in her own blood.  This was, once more in the words used by your own senior counsel, a horrific death.  Your lack of remorse and callous words and actions after the murder were such as to exacerbate, if that were possible, the dreadful nature of your crime.

You are now aged 63 and have no previous convictions.  I have listened with care to the brief submissions advanced this morning on your behalf in mitigation by senior counsel, and propose to take into account all that has been said, in particular regarding your lack of any criminal record and lack of any history of violence. I also note that you have at no stage denied responsibility for the killing of your victim.

The sentence for the crime of murder is fixed by law and is one of imprisonment for life.  As part of the sentencing exercise in cases of this nature the court requires to select a period known as the punishment part.  That period is the number of years which must be served before consideration can be given to any release on life licence.  When the court sets this tariff it is not in any sense appointing the time when you will be released.  The court in so doing is instead fixing the number of years which must be served by you before you can actually make any application for release.  The punishment part does not take into account the need for public protection.  That important matter is taken into account by the Parole Board for Scotland if and when any application is made by you in due course for your release.  The punishment part does, however, take into account the sentencing requirements of retribution and deterrence.

In selecting an appropriate punishment part in your case, I take into account primarily the sheer gravity of the crime of murder of which you now stand convicted, together of course with your own personal circumstances.  In respect of the crime itself, this was not just a sustained episode of frenzied instrumental violence upon a defenceless and highly vulnerable woman.  This was a vile and cowardly act of malevolent and wholly murderous butchery perpetrated by you upon your partner in her own home. 

Turning, finally, to disposal, I now duly pass upon you in respect of this indictment the mandatory sentence of imprisonment for life.  The punishment part will be set at a period of 25 years.  I attribute one year of that period to the aggravation libelled in the charge.  You were remanded in custody for one week following your initial appearance on petition but have been on bail since the stage of full committal. This sentence will accordingly run from today.”

7 August 2024