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| 'Missing' biker killer is jailed | |
| (41 minutes later) | |
| A man who battered a biker to death more than a decade ago then buried his body in a field has been jailed for 10 years. | |
| Thomas Pryde, 38, from Perthshire, said he attacked 46-year-old biker Adam Alexander in 1999 with a metal pole, after they had a row. | |
| Despite police searches, no trace of Mr Alexander's body has been found. | |
| At the High Court in Edinburgh, judge Lord Bracadale described the killing as a "most disturbing crime". | |
| Pryde, who ran a plumbing business based in Scone, Perthshire, said that he had gone to Mr Alexander's home in Errol to discuss a business deal but a row had broken out. | |
| He said he had "lost the plot" and picked up a metal bar before repeatedly hitting his victim until he died. | |
| The anxiety which his disappearance must have caused to his family, and years of not knowing what happened to him, and now the knowledge that his body lies somewhere on waste ground, must all be very hard to bear Judge Lord Bracadale | |
| He claimed that he then panicked and buried the body in a field beside Errol brickworks. | |
| Mr Alexander was reported missing after he failed to turn up for a meeting with a possible buyer for his motorbike on 14 November 1999. | |
| Pryde confided in his wife Angela that he had killed the biker during a holiday to the Greek island of Zante in 2006. | |
| But after threatening to leave her following an affair, she went to police in 2007, ending one of Scotland's longest running unsolved crimes. | |
| Pryde told officers where he buried the body, but a large-scale search in 2008 failed to find any trace of Mr Alexander. | |
| Adam Alexander was reported missing in 1999 | |
| Sentencing Pryde to 10 years, Lord Bracadale told him: "This happened in 1999 and to this day the body of Mr Alexander has never been found, despite efforts which you have at least made - and continue to make - to assist in that regard. | |
| "The anxiety which his disappearance must have caused to his family, and years of not knowing what happened to him, and now the knowledge that his body lies somewhere on waste ground, must all be very hard to bear." | |
| Pryde is currently serving a five-year sentence for a drive-by shooting at the home of a business rival. | |
| He admitted firing two shots at the home of plumbing boss Steve Stewart in 2004. | |
| The latest case is the first time since Nat Fraser was jailed in 2003 for murdering his wife Arlene that an accused in Scotland has been convicted of a killing where the victim has never been found. |