SENTENCING STATEMENTS

WARNING: The following statement contains graphic details that some readers may find upsetting.

Upon sentencing at the High Court in Glasgow, Lord Arthurson made the following remarks:

"Jordan Honeyman, you have today on the unanimous verdict of the jury been convicted of the barbaric murder of Mr Alan Lawson at your own home, a residential property in Alexander Avenue, Largs, North Ayrshire, on or between 2 and 4 February 2024.

"Mr Lawson was born on 1 December 1987 in Irvine.  He died at Crosshouse Hospital, Kilmarnock, on 6 February 2024.  He is survived by his grieving mother and brothers and other close family members.  His mother sat in court each day, having given evidence in this trial, with great dignity and courage, listening to the evidence properly led by the Crown regarding her son’s murder.  In particular, she required to hear of events at the house in Alexander Avenue that your own senior counsel in his address to the jury characterised as unimaginable and appalling. I have read with care the moving and eloquent impact statements prepared by Mr Lawson’s mother and brother which were tendered by the Crown upon your conviction earlier today. Their lives, and those of all who knew and loved Mr Lawson, will be forever changed by his murder at your hands.

"In a sustained and brutal attack upon Mr Lawson, which resulted in fatal injuries, you repeatedly punched and kicked him on the head and body, repeatedly struck him on the head and body with a sharp instrument, jumped from a staircase onto his head and body, scalded his feet, removed his clothing, applied superglue to his injuries, forced him into a shower and failed to seek any medical attention for him, all whereby he subsequently died at Crosshouse Hospital.  The jury has unanimously determined that the attack perpetrated by you was a wholly murderous one.

"You filmed Mr Lawson as he lay naked and injured on the floor of your living room, covered in and surrounded by his own blood, and sent that footage, along with voice notes and text messages, to another person by way of a threat.  Screenshots of that video were produced in court, showing Mr Lawson lying on the ground and yourself, standing in your kitchen, naked to the waist, your torso, chest and face smeared in your victim’s blood.  You stated in these messages, inter alia:

'I just f***** lacerated a c*** and put five holes in him for less, I’m going to stab the life out of you, I’m going to murder you …  You see the video I sent you last night, you’re going to be that next dead body…The video you seen was for a fraction of what you’ve done, just imagine the pain.'

"The injuries inflicted upon Mr Lawson by you included signs of injuries designed specifically to inflict pain, in particular scalding injuries to each foot, a full thickness laceration or incised wound to the forehead, a through and through incised wound to the right earlobe and an incised wound to the upper shin which transected the patella ligament and penetrated into the bone of the tibia, exposing the underlying bone marrow.  Stippled bruising, including intradermal marking, indicative of the use of footwear in an assault, was found on Mr Lawson’s back.  Further stippled bruising was found on the left side of his head and elsewhere on his body.  Two separate linear fractures were found within the base of Mr Lawson’s skull, on the left side one of 7cm and on the right one of 3.5cm.  For such fractures to develop in the base of the skull, a considerable amount of force requires to have been applied to the head.  There was additionally bruising to the scalp, face and neck and a nasal fracture, all indicative of blunt force trauma to the head and neck.

"The mechanism of death identified by the experienced consultant forensic pathologist who gave evidence for the Crown was complex and unusual, but, put short, can be summarised in this way.  The head and neck injuries inflicted by you led to arterial blood clotting which in turn led to a massive stroke which caused Mr Lawson’s death.

"A marked feature of the evidence led during this trial relates to the many individuals who appeared to do your bidding in the aftermath of your murderous attack on Mr Lawson.  Various individuals assisted you in such ways as the acquisition and delivery of superglue;  the provision of towels on your request to assist you in the clearing up of your house, which operation included the tearing up and removal of blood stained carpeting;  the provision of vehicles, first to remove Mr Lawson from your property during the evening of 4 February 2024 and to return him that night, dreadfully injured, to his own home, and thereafter, later that night to remove at least 10 bags of blood stained material and, quite extraordinarily, to drive to Saltcoats seafront and at 2.30am on 5 February 2024, throw those bags into the sea;  and, thereafter to provide you with accommodation after you had removed yourself from your own home after these events.  Indeed, you were arrested on 20 February 2024 at the home of one of your helpful acquaintances.  Having heard the evidence at this trial, I wish to put on record that every one of these individuals ought to be thoroughly ashamed of what they did to assist you.

"The forensic biologist who attended the scene on 9 February 2024, after the clear up of course, described the living room as heavily and extensively blood stained, with heavy tide marks in blood.  Testing undertaken indicated that there had been a significant amount of blood on the laminate flooring, with some form of blood pooling.  Very small and small blood spots were found on the ceiling, indicative of a high level of force being applied into wet blood.  Further blood staining was located in the hallway, stairwell, bathroom and main bedroom at the house.

"You are now aged 31.  You have to date accrued some five groups of previous convictions and have served four custodial sentences.  Your first conviction was in the High Court, in 2013, for assault and robbery with a weapon;  your third was at sheriff and jury level in 2019 for offending related to two charges of assault to severe injury;  and your fifth was also at sheriff and jury level, in 2022, also for assault to severe injury with a baseball bat.  Your victim in that case was also Mr Alan Lawson, the deceased in the present case.

"I have listened carefully to the short submission of your senior counsel in mitigation, and note in particular what has been said by him regarding your position whereby you have not disputed that you assaulted Mr Lawson, but proceeded to trial on the issue of whether that assault was a murderous one.

"The sentence for the crime of murder is fixed by law.  It is one of imprisonment for life.  The court requires as part of the sentencing exercise in cases of this nature, however, to select a period which is known of the punishment part of that fixed disposal.  The punishment part is the number of years which you must serve before you can be considered for release on life licence.  When the court sets this tariff it is not in any sense appointing the time when you will be released.  Instead, the court is determining the number of years which must be served by you before you can actually apply for release.  The punishment part does not take into account the need for public protection.  That vital 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 twin sentencing requirements of retribution and deterrence.

"In selecting an appropriate punishment part in your case, I take into account principally the gravity of the crime of murder of which you now stand convicted, together with your criminal history for crimes of violence on indictment.

"The crime of murder committed by you in this case was as exceptionally callous as it was brutal. The violence inflicted by you upon Mr Lawson included injuries designed to cause him particular pain. These were, in my view, nothing less than acts of torture. The jury has also found that you jumped from the staircase in your house onto your victim’s head and body. The pathology evidence disclosed, of course, significant and separate basal skull fractures. The screenshots shown in court taken from the video you took within the house of yourself and your victim make clear that you revelled in what you had done. The image in particular of you half naked and smeared from waist to head in your victim’s blood was strongly resonant of a scene from some form of dystopian work of fiction. It is of note, additionally, that you were intentionally utilising that footage as a threat to another individual. You also, again quite deliberately, initiated and undertook extensive steps to conceal your guilt and in effect to create an alternative narrative of events, drawing others into your efforts to avoid your criminal responsibility in this case.

"In the whole circumstances, on charge one on this indictment I now pass upon you the mandatory sentence of imprisonment for life. I fix the punishment part of that disposal at a period of 25 years. This sentence will be backdated to the date of your initial remand into custody in these proceedings, namely 20 February 2024."

14 May 2026