SENTENCING STATEMENTS
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HMA v Gary Mooney
Feb 10, 2026
On sentencing, Lord Arthurson made the following comments in court:
“Gary Mooney, on 7 January 2026 at a preliminary hearing at Glasgow High Court you pled guilty to what your own counsel then described as an extremely serious and atrocious offence, namely the assault to severe injury and danger of life and robbery of your own 80-year-old father on 7 February 2025 at his flat in Motherwell, all when you were meant to be acting as his carer.
Over a sustained period you repeatedly seized and compressed his throat, thereby restricting his breathing, causing him to go in and out of consciousness many times. You then gouged your thumbs into your victim’s eyes, forced him to the floor, straddled him and poured liquid on and repeatedly slapped and punched him on the head. You knelt on his chest, restricting his breathing, repeatedly kicked him in the ribs, took his key and locked him alone and injured in the house. You had threatened him in order to make him tell you where he had cash stored in the house. You proceeded to rob him of the sum of £40,000 in cash, £37,000 of which he had hidden as an inheritance for his grandchildren. You refused to allow a carer entry to the property, making threats to her and following her to her car. On your arrest later that day you told officers ‘I hope he fucking dies.’
Your victim was taken by ambulance to hospital, where he was admitted to the resuscitation unit. He had bruising of the face and chest; a bleed on the brain; a fracture to his lower back; and three right sided rib fractures. He never left hospital. He developed pneumonia and died there on 6 March 2025, with a primary cause of death of hitherto undiagnosed lung cancer.
You are now aged 44 and have to date accrued 4 groups of previous convictions, including in 2012 on indictment the crime of assault to severe injury and permanent disfigurement (with a shovel) and in 2020 two charges of assault to injury at summary level.
I have listened carefully to the submissions advanced in mitigation by your counsel this morning, and note in particular what has been said regarding your positive employment history; your mental health and the unravelling of your previously pro-social family life at the time of this offence; your expressed shame and contrition; the fact that you have not previously served any custodial sentence; and your acceptance of responsibility by way of your guilty plea.
While the author of the sentencing report suggests the imposition of an extended sentence, it appears to me that the qualifying threshold risk assessment has not been achieved in your case. In the whole circumstances of this truly despicable crime, I will instead impose, by way of punishment, retribution and deterrence, a high tariff determinate custodial sentence.
You will accordingly, on charge two on this indictment, serve a sentence of 7 years imprisonment, reduced from a period of 9 years due to the timing and associated utility of your plea of guilty. This disposal will be backdated to 10 February 2025, being the date of your initial remand into custody in these proceedings.”
10 February 2026