A killer who walked free from court on a murder charge two years ago was yesterday jailed for life.
Two years ago a jury found a charge against James ''Jazzer'' Cunningham, 37, of stabbing a man to death outside a pub in Clydebank not proven.
But yesterday another jury in the same court convicted him of murdering a man in a pub in front of screaming witnesses.
Customers were enjoying a Sunday night drink when Cunningham burst through the door of Gillespie's bar in Bonhill, Dumbartonshire, with his co-accused, David McDermott.
The pair fractured Andrew Miller's skull with the flat end of a machete.
As tables overturned and glasses smashed to the floor 30-year-old Miller tried in vain to escape his killers.
He was hacked and shot at and finally stabbed through the heart and left lying dead among broken glass on the floor.
Before they drove off Cunningham, of Pattison Street, Dalmuir, and McDermott, 29, of Kilbowie Road, Clydebank, waved a handgun and threatened witnesses they would be killed if they gave information to the police.
Murder squad detectives initially met a wall of silence lasting several weeks because the pub staff and customers were too frightened of the accused to speak out.
Eventually police did get information, but witnesses have had to be given special protection night and day since the murder of Miller, of Cook Road, Balloch, in August last year.
McDermott was also found guilty of the murder and jailed for life.
Advocate-depute Jack Davidson, QC, prosecuting, told the jury: ''There is ample evidence from eyewitnesses who saw Mr Miller being attacked as he sat sipping his drink to prove the two accused were guilty of his murder.''
Both accused lodged alibis that they were elsewhere at the time of the murder, but neither gave evidence.
The court heard how Miller had been in a fight with McDermott's father in a pub in Dumbarton hours before he was murdered.
A charge in July, l995, against Cunningham that along with Kevin Toye, 34, he stabbed and murdered John McRae, 27, of Alexander Street, Clydebank, with a mountaineering axe was found not proven.
Toye was convicted and jailed for life, but he was murdered later in prison.
McRae was hacked to death outside the Cat and Barrel Bar in Clydebank on February 4, l995, and was the victim of a feud between rival factions in Clydebank which has resulted in several murders.
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