Girvan Stagecoach bus driver's killer found guilty after trial in Edinburgh High Court

At the High Court in Edinburgh last week after a 13 day trial, 27-year old Adam Lundy was found guilty by a majority of assaulting and murdering 44-year old John Kiltie in Park Road, Girvan, on May 28 this year. 

Two other men, Kern Allison, 18 and Nicholas Goodwin, 24, had been charged with assaulting Mr Kiltie, but not with his murder. Allison was unanimously found guilty of assault and Goodwin was found not guilty by a majority.
Mr Kiltie, a driver with Stagecoach, was repeatedly punched and kicked on the head and body and stabbed four times. He died from a stab wound to the heart inflicted by a double edged 5 inch bladed knife.

The jury heard that the houses in Park Road were a mixture of owner-occupied and council tenancies. Mr Kiltie and his partner 38-year old Sharon Tweedie, owned Number 8 and had lived there for 20 years. Directly across the road from them was Number 13.

Ms Tweedie told the court there had been trouble with noisy behaviour from Number 13 regularly. Through the evening of May 27 into the morning of the 28 there had been continuous shouting and music coming from the house.

She asked her husband to phone the police. Two police cars arrived with four officers. Ms Tweedie said the police stayed “just minutes” and left.

The family were planning to go to Ayr for the day and Mr Kiltie began cleaning his Rover car, described as being “his pride and joy”.  The woman who stayed at Number 13 was shouting at John Kiltie calling him “a police grass”. 

Sharon Tweedie said Kern Allison came out of the living room window. “There was a lot of shouting and swearing” she said. 

“He was very upset and threw a can of beer at John.”

The court heard the woman shouted to Kern to: “Go and do him in”.

Sharon continued: “There was a commotion and I heard really loud screaming. I have never heard anything like it in my life. It was like an animal”. 

Kern Allison and Adam Lundy then appeared from the back garden and she heard Allison say: “We have to go. We’ve done him in” and they ran off.

“I went to the back door” she said. “John’s mum was kneeling next to John, who was lying on the ground. There was lots of blood on his chest. I just bent down, picked his head up and said ‘I’m OK’ and for him to get up”. The police arrived and used a battering ram to get into the house".

John Kiltie’s mother, 71-year old Georgina Kiltie, known as Rena, heard the shouting, saw Sharon at Number 13 and went to see what was up.  

Kern Allison, she said ,was taunting her son and challenging him: “Come on, come on”. Two other men joined in, she said and “All hell broke loose”. 

The three men surrounded her son and pushed him into the back garden.  “I tried to get in front of him. I was so scared. I just could not move them. I could not save him”. 

She added: “His eyes just shot open when one (Kern Allison) hit him with a flower pot. John staggered and then another one (Nicholas Goodwin) hit him on the other side of his head with something. He fell into the wee swimming pool. 

"He sat up and said ‘Mum’. I held him and said ‘Don’t go darling. 

"We’ll get you home. They are animals’. 

"He was turning blue. I could see blood on his T-shirt. I rolled it up and I saw stab wounds. I was shouting for help”.

A neighbour, Dianne Hamilton, 47, whose house overlooks the back garden of 13, describing the attack on John Kiltie, said she saw Adam Lundy go into the house and return with a red-handled knife. 

“He drew a breath and went charging past the women, right through to John. I heard Sharon screaming”.

The three accused, in statements to the police, claimed that John Kiltie had attacked them with a baseball bat when he arrived at the house after the beer can incident. Allison and Goodwin did not give evidence in court, but John Lundy did. 

He told the jury he heard Kern Allison screaming. “I  panicked. I thought Kern was being badly hurt. I went into the kitchen and got a knife”. 

He said he put the knife into the back of his trousers. “It was the first thing that came to hand” he said. “It was more to scare people.” 

Asked by defence counsel, Thomas Ross, what had then happened, Lundy declared that he had been acting in self-defence. 

Advocate Depute, Tim Niven-Smith pointed out Mr Kiltie had been stabbed four times.

After the jury returned their verdicts, Mr Niven-Smith told judge, Lady Scott, that Lundy was “a violent recidivist with a prediliction for carrying weapons”.

In 2007, he was convicted of assaults with a bottle, golf club and knife. In 2014, he was jailed for causing injury with a knife and most recently, while he was on bail prior to his trial for the murder of Mr Kiltie, he was sentenced for possession of a knife and racially aggravated assaults.

He will be sentenced on December 15.

Allison, who had been remanded since May, and had served the equivalent of 10 months imprisonment, was admonished for assault.

Having been found not guilty, Goodwin was released from the dock.

Outside the court, Mr Kiltie’s father, also John Kiltie, said he was “not happy” with the verdicts.