A SCOTTISH hitman was yesterday jailed for 29 years in Tenerife for his part in the murder of a bar owner in the Canary Islands resort nearly three years ago.

Stan Stewart, of Clackmannan, and Gary Holmes, both 31, of Littlehampton, Sussex, were each sentenced to 29 years for the killing of Michael O'Hara, 39, from Wakefield, Yorkshire.

Mr O'Hara's lover and business partner, Jackie Ambler, 33, of Yorkshire, was jailed for 27 years for plotting his death in the bar she ran with him on the south coast of Tenerife.

The sentences, handed down by a panel of three judges at Tenerife's Palace of Justice in Santa Cruz, were just short of the maximum under Spanish law of 30 years and represent the severest jail terms handed down to Britons in post-Franco Spain.

After a trial that dragged on for four sessions spread over a three-month period, the court ruled that Ambler had offered #54,000 to Stewart and Holmes to kill Mr O'Hara.

He was beaten over the head with a metal beer barrel and then choked with a cloth which was rammed down his throat at Stevie's Bar, a British-type pub the couple owned at the brash resort of Los Cristianos, on September 5, 1995.

Ambler, a divorcee who frequently broke down during the trial hearings, always maintained her innocence and consistently denied having masterminded the murder. Her 13-year-old son, Robert, was brought out from England to claim his mother was with him outside the bar after being sent away by Mr O'Hara and when they returned to the bar, Mr O'Hara was already dead.

Stewart and Holmes both made detailed statements shortly after they were arrested describing how they sat down together with Ambler in a neighbouring bar and planned the murder. Both said they had been told they would be paid for ridding Ambler of her lover.

However, when the trial started 30 months later, they had changed their stories and Holmes told the judges that he alone was responsible for the crime.

He claimed he had killed Mr O'Hara in a fight over a drugs debt and had made up the story about Ambler and Stewart because he thought she had told police about his drug trafficking activities.

In one dramatic moment, Holmes leapt to his feet and shouted at the judges: ''These people are innocent. I have put my friend and this woman behind bars for nearly three years already. You can do what you like to me, but please let them go.''

Stewart told the court he had gone along with Holmes's claims because he was scared of him and ''of the men he worked for''.

Holmes told the trial that Stewart's only involvement had been to try to break-up the fight between himself and Mr O'Hara.

However, the judges rejected the new versions of what had taken place, stating the two men had stayed behind at Stevie's Bar until it had closed that night and then attacked their victim.

Yesterday, all three were being informed by their lawyers of the sentences at the island's prison where they have been held since their arrests almost immediately after the murder.

Stewart's relatives immediately vowed to launch a campaign to clear his name and secure his release from jail.

Stewart's mother, Helen, 59, of Newmills in Tullibody, Clackmannanshire, wept when she learned her son had been jailed, saying: ''I just don't know where to turn.''

Mrs Stewart, who has eight sons and a daughter, talked of her last telephone conversation with her son just over a week ago.

''He told me not to worry and everything would sort itself out. It's such a shock. The whole family will be devastated as we were expecting him to come home.''

She added: ''There is a chance of an appeal but I can't go over there in case he loses that. I couldn't face leaving him in jail.''

Stewart's brother, Paul, 29, insisted his brother was innocent of the murder, adding: ''Now we are in a state of limbo and are trying to find out how to appeal.''

Mr Stewart explained he had been unable to speak to his brother since hearing of the 29-year jail sentence and the family were still trying to talk to British officials in Tenerife.

He revealed his brother, who was laid off as a butcher in Scotland, had gone to Tenerife about three years ago, initially for a holiday, but decided to stay after his friend Holmes found him a job as a bouncer.

Mr Paul Stewart said yesterday: ''He is a big lad who can look after himself. He was there for about three months doing the bouncing before he got locked up.''

His brother, who spent around two years and nine months on remand, missed his father Charlie's funeral last year because the Spanish authorities would not let him return home. Stewart also has a young son called Martin, but no longer saw him or his estranged fiancee.