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Man admits murdering 15-year-old Paige Doherty in Clydebank Man pleads guilty to murdering 15-year-old Paige Doherty
(about 11 hours later)
A man has admitted murdering a 15-year-old schoolgirl whose body was found in bushes by a roadside two days after she went missing. A shop owner murdered a teenager in a “frenzied” knife attack after she went to buy a breakfast roll on her way to her hairdressing job.
Paige Doherty went missing from Clydebank, West Dunbartonshire, on the morning of 19 March when she failed to arrive at her weekend hairdressing job in Kirkintilloch, East Dunbartonshire, about 12 miles away. John Leathem inflicted more than 140 stab wounds and cuts on 15-year-old Paige Doherty in Clydebank, West Dunbartonshire, on 19 March .
John Leathem, 32, pleaded guilty to murder during an appearance at the high court in Glasgow on Monday. At the high court in Glasgow, Leathem, 32, admitted murdering Paige in the back office at Delicious Deli in the town’s Fleming Avenue before dumping her body in nearby woodland.
Paige’s disappearance sparked intense police activity in the areas where she was last seen and where her body was eventually found. He grabbed a knife and stabbed the teenager during a brief discussion about a job at the shop, when he claims Paige told him “I’ll just say you touched me” if she was not offered the position, according to his defence counsel.
Specialist forensic officers narrowed down their search to the Delicious Deli in Clydebank’s Fleming Avenue, the premises where the teenager was last spotted after leaving a friend’s house. Family and friends of the schoolgirl gasped and stifled cries as CCTV footage was shown to the court of Leathem carrying her body in a bin liner to the boot of his car after murdering her within 10 minutes of her entering the shop that Saturday morning.
Paige’s body was found on 21 March in a wooded area behind a path off Great Western Road, a busy route connecting Clydebank and Glasgow. Judge Lady Rae told the married father of two, a first-time offender: “This was a savage, frenzied attack on a child.”
Shop owner Leathem was arrested three days later over the killing. The alarm was raised when Paige failed to turn up for her part-time hairdressing job in Kirkintilloch, East Dunbartonshire. Her mother, Pamela Munro, reported her missing after checking with friends.
In a statement released at the time, Paige’s mother, Pamela Munro, said: “We are absolutely devastated that we have lost our beautiful little girl.” Paige was last seen entering Delicious Deli at 8.21am and Leathem is believed to have stabbed her by the time neighbouring shop owners noticed the shutters pulled down at 8.31am. He was later captured on CCTV leaving the shop to buy anti-bacterial wipes, bin bags and bleach, and collect his car from his nearby home, in a bid to cover up the crime.
Hundreds of people, many carrying pink balloons, turned out at a park to remember the popular teenager shortly after her body was found. Leathem is understood to have stored Doherty’s body in a shed at his home before driving to a wooded area off Great Western Road and dumping her body before opening for business on the morning of Monday 21 March. At around noon that day a walker spotted what he thought were legs in the undergrowth and raised the alarm.
The landmark Titan Crane in Clydebank was lit up in pink one evening in memory of the teenager and as a gesture of support for everyone affected by the crime. A post-mortem examination recorded 61 stab wounds, including 43 to the head and neck, and 85 further cuts – many of them described as defensive in nature – as Paige tried to fight off her attacker.
After Paige’s death, Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, was among those who showed support to the family by posting pictures of themselves pouting with the hashtag #PoutforPaige. The prosecution told the court: “Reviews of CCTV footage led police to believe Paige Doherty had entered the deli but had not walked away.”
Two fundraising pages to help the family meet funeral costs and other expenses collected thousands of pounds within days of being set up. Ian Duguid QC, defending, said when Paige entered the shop that day she was “just another customer”. But the shop owner knew of her through her mother, who had told him that her daughter was unhappy with her placement at the hairdresser’s.
Paige’s mother told the 600 mourners at the funeral at St Margaret’s church, Clydebank, to turn their anger at her death into cherishing the memory of her “beautiful smiling girl” and her “infectious personality”. Duguid said: “In general conversation the accused mentioned to Paige that he knew she might be unhappy at her work. According to him he explained that his business was looking for an assistant to work in the shop.”
Doherty is said to have gone with him to the back office where he took some details from her. Because she was a month away from turning 16, he said he told her he would have to speak to her mother, and also explained there were other candidates for the job.
Leathem claims Paige responded: “I thought I was getting a job”, before adding, “I’ll just say you touched me”, the court heard.
Duguid, setting out Leathem’s version of events, said he stood up suddenly and knocked the chair he was sitting on backwards to the floor. Paige is said to have stood up suddenly herself and started screaming, and the shop owner responded by grabbing a knife from the top of a nearby cabinet and stabbing her. He was said to have expressed “extreme sorrow and remorse” for his actions.
The defence described the killing as a “spontaneous, gross overreaction”. Before the murder, Duguid said Leathem had been “an ordinary member of the community with no history of offending or violent offending”.
Paige’s family said they will never get over what happened to the teenager. Her grandmother described her as a “kind and selfless person and all-round good girl” in a victim impact statement.
Her mother hears her daughter’s screams in her nightmares, the court heard, and stepfather Andrew told how they could not get out of their heads “the terror that she must have experienced”.
Leathem will be sentenced at the high court in Glasgow on 12 October.