'They weren’t squeaky clean, but they didn’t deserve to die' - family of two brothers found dead after a night

Their mother Anne, 51, said the results of toxicology tests are inconclusive, but the family suspect the deaths may have been drugs-related.

The brothers had come in after drinking with friends and spoke to family hours before they died. John’s girlfriend Carly Anne Collins, 24, found him dead next to her and police found Scott lying dead on his couch a short time later.

Their uncle William Barclay said the affluent suburb of Newton Mearns has a drugs problem with illegal substances readily available. He admitted his nephews did use drugs “recreationally”.

Barclay said: “They weren’t heroin addicts. They’ve never taken smack or anything like that. Or ecstasy.

“They weren’t squeaky clean, but they didn’t deserve to die. Have they ever taken drugs? Obviously. So do a lot of people around here.”

Anne, added: “They wouldn’t take it if they were sober. Only if they’d had a drink. It was alcohol for Scott. He had his demons.”

John and Scott Mitchell were from a close-knit family. They lived with Anne in an area of Newton Mearns known locally as the Scheme. John and Scott spent a lot of time at their grandparents’ house in Castle Road. It was in Hugh and Irene’s house that John died.

His grandfather Hugh Barclay said: “He was snoring his head off from nine o’clock in the morning onwards. He said he was going to sleep all day.

“Later that day his girlfriend came running down the stairs and said there’s something wrong with John. She was screaming: ‘I can’t wake him up’. We went up the stairs and he was lying there. I gave him CPR but he was gone.”

William Barclay added: “We sent the police round to Scott as soon as we found John. They had to kick the door in because there was no reply. They found him lying dead on the couch.”

Speaking to the Sunday Herald on Friday, their mother said she “devoted her life” to her two children.

Fighting back tears, the softly-spoken supermarket worker said: “They came in and they spoke to us as if it was just another night out. They were going to be sleeping through the day. They were alright. Scott came in at 12.30am, got his dinner. You wouldn’t have thought anything. It was just another night out. They said they had a good night out.

“I devoted my life to those boys. All I do is go to work in the Co-op to get the money pay for a house to keep a roof over our heads. They both stayed with me, but they were two grown men and I only have two bedrooms, so John was more often down at his gran’s. We all spent a lot of time there. Every day we’d get our dinner here. We’re a close family.”

Anne is still waiting for answers about the cause of death. “The toxicology report was inconclusive,” she said. “Everything they’ve done in the post mortem is inconclusive. We don’t know anything. It will be 10 to 12 weeks before we find out anything else.”

Tributes have flooded in for the brothers, who were well known locally, having always lived in Newton Mearns. Almost £3,000 has been donated to the family through an online fundraiser.

William Barclay said: “The two boys were loved in the community. Their family loved them, friends loved them. They had lots of friends. They were popular boys.

“They’d have a drink and they liked to party with their pals. But they didn’t cause anybody any harm. A lot of the older folk around here, they’d say hello to them and speak to them. The boys wouldn’t harm a fly. They were lovely big guys. They went out of their way to help folk.”

Both men went to Mearns Castle High School. Scott worked was looking for work in the building trade and John had just secured a job at a cash and carry. A post on John’s Facebook page on July 27 said: “Finally got the job I was looking for. I’m so happy. Time to knuckle down and start saving.”

His grandfather Hugh said: “Last weekend was going to be John’s last night out for a while because he got a job at a cash and carry. He was supposed to start on Monday. Scott was going to get a job on the building sites.

“They were two of the most decent boys around. Alright, they liked a drink. But you tell me what 28-year-old and 29-year-old boys don’t like to go out for a drink.

“Everybody in the community is gutted. You should see how many cards we have from this community. There’s about hundred cards. The funeral is on Thursday and I think it’s going to be mobbed.”

The family is trying to prepare for the funeral but there is a palpable sense of anger at Hugh and Irene’s home in Castle Road. They want police to arrest drug dealers who may have supplied John and Scott with the substances that they believe killed them.

Anne said: “For drug dealing around here, it’s hit a door, miss a door, hit a door, miss a door. They’ll not like us saying that but it’s the truth.”

William said: “It’s not the people that have lived here all their days. They wouldn’t go around supplying Class A drugs to people.

“I don’t know who the people are – I would get tested because I’ve never touched drugs in my life – but I know if I wanted to take drugs I could find them easily enough.”

Hugh added: “The police have questioned us – they want us to do their job for them – but do you think those boys will come and say I was out with such and such and I got this off them and that off them?”

Sources who work with drug addicts speculated that the boys may have taken pills that contained opiates.

One Glasgow-based drugs worker, who asked not to be named, said: “It’s likely to have been a long acting opioid and they might not have had a tolerance to it. The street Valium people were buying recently had no benzodiazepines in them, but they had a very long acting opioid. It was called U4470. People were buying them for a come down and didn’t know they were opioids.”

A spokesman for the Scottish Drugs Forum added: “This is most likely an overdose involving polydrug use and perhaps alcohol. It’s a great shame and tragic for the family.”

Police raided homes in Newton Mearns after the brothers were found dead, but detectives have yet to make any arrests. A spokeswoman for Police Scotland said an investigation is under way. “Enquiries are ongoing,” she added. Police also revealed last night they are investigating the death of a third man in Newton Mearns. The body was found at 2.30pm on Friday August 10 at a house in Anderson Drive, near to where two brothers died on August 5.

"The death is being treated as unexplained," said a Police Scotland spokeswoman. "There is nothing to suggest a link [to the deaths of two brothers] at this time."

The man is yet to be identified. A post mortem will be held to establish the cause of the man's death.

DRUG DEATHS IN SCOTLAND AT RECORD LEVELS

Scotland now has the highest drug deaths rate in Europe, with 934 fatalities recorded in 2017.

The figures which were published last month show a doubling in drug deaths since 2007.

The death toll of 934 represented a rise of 66 from the year before. The death toll in 2007 was 455. Scotland has lost 10,000 people since drug death figures were first collated in 1996.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde was the health board with the most drug-related deaths at 280 (30 per cent), followed by NHS Lothian with 137 (15 per cent) and NHS Lanarkshire at 102 (11 per cent).

Heroin or morphine were implicated in, or potentially contributed to, 470 deaths, followed by methadone for 439 people, diazepam for 205, etizolam for 299, cocaine in 176 and ecstasy-like substances in 27.

Many of those who died last year started using heroin in the 1980s. Three-quarters of the dead were over 35 while more than a third were over 45. Eighteen of those who lost their lives were pensioners.

Deaths of the under-25s fell, to 39, down from a peak of 100 in 2002. Three of those who lost their lives were 14 or younger.

Scottish Government research found there had been a 169 per cent jump in female drug-related deaths over the past decade, against a 60 per cent rise in male deaths.

Women accounted for 19 per cent of drug deaths from 2002 to 2006, but 29 per cent from 2012 to 2016.

The Scottish drugs death rate is the highest in the European Union, two and a half times higher per capita than in England and Wales and 50 times higher per capita than in Portugal, which largely treats narcotics as a medical problem.

When the figures were released, Scotland’s newly-appointed Public Health Minister Joe FitzPatrick said a refreshed drugs strategy would be “direct response” to both changing drug patterns and the rise in deaths.

He added: “The new strategy will take a person-centred approach so that treatment and support services address people’s wider health and social needs, such as mental health, employability and homelessness.”