SENTENCING STATEMENTS

On sentencing Lord Harrower made the following remarks in court:

"Michael Day, on 17 February 2025, at the High Court in Glasgow, you were found guilty of the murder of Thomas Bowers and the attempted murder of another man.  The court knows very little about Mr Bowers.  It has received no victim impact statement from his family.  But I am conscious that no sentence of this court can alleviate their suffering.

The jury heard that you had been using a tenanted flat in the Springburn area of Glasgow as a base from which to store and supply controlled drugs, a practice sometimes referred to as “cuckooing”.  In the early morning of 14 April 2023, two masked men and a woman arrived at the flat, woke the tenant up, and demanded to know where the drugs were.  Having been tipped off, you got into your car and made your way there, just as the intruders were leaving.  As such, they posed no threat to you of any kind.  However, in CCTV images that were played to the jury, your Vauxhall Astra could be seen mounting the pavement on the wrong side of the road, before ploughing into the back of Mr Bowers and his companion.  Mr Bowers did not get up after being hit, and died at the scene.  The other man did get up, but you drove into him, repeatedly, endangering his life and causing him severe, permanently disfiguring, injuries.  Further CCTV footage showed the now damaged Astra being driven away from the locus and then returning to where the two bodies could be seen lying in the street, before heading to a nearby location, where it was later found with fire damage principally to the rear of the driver’s side, in the area around the fuel cap. 

Mr Day, this was a deliberate, sustained attack on two individuals, in which you repeatedly used your vehicle as a weapon, killing one and seriously injuring the other.  You have shown no remorse for what you did, and appear to have no insight into your offending. 

You were just 24 when you were found guilty, and the Scottish Sentencing Council’s guideline for the sentencing of young people applies.  I have also taken account of your relative youth and immaturity at the time of the incident.  Apart from your age, the main mitigating factors are the absence in your record of any previous conviction for a crime of violence, as well as various adverse childhood experiences, all as set out in the helpful social work report with which I have been provided.  I have also taken account of a recent assessment carried out by a clinical psychologist.  Both reports refer to your childhood as being one in which violence was normalised as a means of resolving conflict.  They refer to certain mental health concerns, although no formal diagnosis of any mental illness has yet been made.  They note that you maintain your innocence, which is your right.  However, given that stance, they clearly found it difficult to assess what significance, if any, these various factors may have had in your offending. 

The only sentence I may lawfully impose on you for murder is a life sentence.   However, I also have to specify a period which must pass before you can apply for release on parole.  The period I select is known as the punishment part of the sentence, and its purpose is to satisfy the requirements of retribution and deterrence.  The parole board will deal in due course with the protection of the public.  In fixing the punishment part of your sentence I must take into account the seriousness of the murder combined with the other offence on the indictment of which you have been convicted.  But for the mitigating factors to which I have already referred, the punishment part I will shortly impose would have been longer.

Before imposing sentence, I need to explain how I propose to take account of the time spent by you on remand.  Following your having been remanded in prison in connection with the offences with which we are presently concerned, you were sentenced at Glasgow Sheriff Court to three consecutive sentences totalling 195 days for various offences relating to the possession of drugs and unauthorised communication devices.  When sentencing you, the court stated that the 195-day period should only commence at the conclusion of any sentence then being served by you.  As a matter of fact you were not serving any sentence of imprisonment at that stage, and clearly the 195-day period could not be served at the conclusion of the life sentence I am about to impose.  It might have been possible, as part of the backdating exercise, to ensure that these 195 days would, in a practical sense, be “served” by you before your life sentence commences.  However, since that period is relatively insignificant in the context of your sentence overall, I will simply backdate both sentences about to be imposed to 20 April 2023, when you were remanded in custody. 

For charge 8, the charge of attempted murder, you are sentenced to a term of imprisonment of 11 years, to be served concurrently with the sentence of life imprisonment I am about to impose for charge 7, and backdated to 20 April 2023. If the sentence for charge 8 had stood alone, it would have included a significant component for public protection that must be left out of account when fixing the punishment part of a life sentence.  The court must also allow for the loss of any prospect of early release.  The result is that the extent to which the sentence I have imposed for attempted murder may contribute to the punishment part of your life sentence is, by law, substantially reduced. 

For charge 7, the murder of Thomas Bowers, I sentence you to life imprisonment, backdated to 20 April 2023. Taking into account the whole circumstances, I will fix the punishment part at 20 years."

10 July 2025