The murder of Bradley Welsh and the mystery of the motive

As a teenager in the 1980s he joined the notorious Hibernian FC football hooligan gang Capital City Service. 

He was given four years imprisonment in 1990 for menacing an estate agent and firearms offences.

Following his release he turned to boxing and in 1993 was crowned British amateur lightweight boxing champion.

Welsh went on to open the Holyrood Boxing Gym in Edinburgh in 2005 where he ran classes for underprivileged kids.

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He also co-founded Helping Hands, a charity to help the less well off which also provided football coaching sessions, Christmas present deliveries and food bank collections.

Welsh featured in the television documentary series Danny Dyer's Deadliest Men, giving the actor a tour of Edinburgh's darkside, revealing he had been arrested seven times at football grounds by the time he was 14.

In 2014, he spent 24 hours in the ring, sparring with 360 opponents, to raise £44,000 for the Sick Kids Foundation and earned a place in the Guinness Book of World Records.

A close pal of Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh, Bradley played a cameo role as gang boss Mr Doyle in the 2017 sequel T2, alongside acting giants Ewan McGregor and Robert Carlyle.

At the time he was seen as a role model for young people.

Police at the scene of the shooting

Someone who had made something of himself from difficult beginnings.

But Welsh found it hard at times to shake off his past despite his best efforts, as he himself would often admit.

On April 17, 2019, Welsh, then 48, had just returned home from his boxing gym around 8pm.

He had parked his blue Fiat opposite his luxury flat in Chester Street in the capital's exclusive New Town -  a far cry from his days growing up in a council house in tough Moredun in the south west of the city. 

He was greeted by neighbour Edward Rennie, a chartered surveyor, before heading to the stairway leading down to his basement flat. 

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As he descended, a man appeared behind him, out of the shadows, and shot him in the head at close range with a shotgun.

The gunman then threatened Mr Rennie who took cover behind a car before alerting the emergency services and then going to Bradley's aid.

CCTV later showed the suspect running past the Japanese Consulate on Melville Street. shortly after 8pm, still carrying the shotgun, then fleeing in a stolen Ford Kuga on nearby Manor Place.

Meanwhile paramedics who had tried to keep Welsh alive pronounced him dead 30 minutes after their arrival.

Initially his partner and eight year old daughter were unaware what had happened as they were inside the flat.

Tributes tied to the railings outside the murdered man's flat

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting both had to be led by police from the house through back gardens as Bradley still lay outside - allowing forensic experts to search the area of the ground where he fell.

Chester Street was also sealed off by armed police and residents told to stay indoors.

A murder investigation was launched with police describing their suspect as aged 20 to 30, 5ft 10in to 6ft tall, slim and with a tanned complexion.

In the aftermath of his death The Rev Iain May, minister of South Leith Parish Church, recalled Mr Welsh donating more than 20 tonnes of food, enabling 1,500 hampers to be distributed to some of the city's poorest families. 

He said: "He was a good man, truly dedicated to helping others less fortunate than himself."   

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The following month 28 year old Sean Orman was arrested and charged with Bradley Welsh's murder and appeared at Edinburgh Sheriff Court.

At this point the body of the murder victim was released back to his family to enable funeral arrangements to be made.

About 400 people packed the main chapel at Mortonhall Crematorium in the south side of the city for the service on June 7 - seven weeks after his murder.

A smaller chapel, where the 40-minute service was shown on a video screen, was also filled to capacity.

Another 500 mourners also gathered outside, where a loudspeaker relayed the ceremony and The Proclaimers Sunshine on Leith played.

Police officers at the murder scene

Posters with his picture were also put on lamp-posts nearby. They carried the message, "Tough times make monkeys eat red peppers", a favourite motivational saying of the former boxer.

Irvine Welsh was among the mourners tweeting:"It'll be a very hard day for us all but we'll stand together in praise and celebration of a great and unique human being." Orman stood trial at the High Court in Edinburgh in April 2021, was found guilty of Welsh's murder, given life and told he must serve 28 years before being considered for parole.

He was also convicted of the attempted murder of 50 year old businessman, David McMillan, in a machete attack at his home in Morningside, the month before the Welsh shooting.

Sentencing Orman, judge Lord Beckett said:"The murder of Bradley Welsh was a premeditated and meticulously planned assassination, the ultimate reasons for which remain unknown to the court.

"The degree of planning which went into this might have seen you get away with it, but for the courage of the citizens of Edinburgh who came forward to speak up about what you did.

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"To shoot an unarmed man as he approached his own house was cowardly, as well as a wicked, thing to do.

"People who go about their daily lives on the streets of Scotland's cities ought to be safe from conduct such as yours. 

"The court must do all it can to deter the commission of contract killings by the imposition of severe punishment."

Orman appeared emotionless as the verdicts and sentence was read out following two hours of jury deliberation.

During the trial one witness had revealed that Orman bragged about killing Welsh and planned to carry out more hits as a contract killer.

The killer makes his escape

The judge may have taken that into account when warning Orman he might never be released - even after the 28 year custodial term ended.

He also said that the Parole Board would only authorise his release, when he no longer posed a threat to the public.

The court was told Orman had five previous convictions for violent crimes. In 2009, he was sentenced to 44 months for assault to severe injury and endangerment of life involving a knife.

He had only been released from prison around two months before the murder took place.

The trial also heard claims that Orman carried out the hit on Welsh on the orders of an underworld figure for £10,000.

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It was also claimed that the same individual, who cannot now be named for legal reasons, paid the killer to attack businessman David McMillan at his Edinburgh home a month earlier.

In the weeks leading up to Welsh's murder, Orman had made nine visits to a tanning salon, giving himself the bronzed complexion that eye witnesses, including his neighbour, would later remember.

It also emerged Orman had used the stolen Ford Kuga to carry out "reconnaissance" trips to Welsh's Chester Street home and gym.

After the shooting Orman travelled to Kirknewton, West Lothian, in the Kuga and arrived at 8.46pm. He was caught on CCTV there at about 9pm carrying a bag believed to contain the shotgun. 

Shotgun cartridges were found in the flat of an ex-girlfriend, and firearm residue in the pockets of Orman's joggers.

"The key here is how do you break free? How do you create a distance between you and your past?"

Unbeknown to him, the Kuga, which contained his fingerprint and DNA, had a tracker device which had recorded its every movement - placing him outside Welsh's flat at the time of the murder.

In his summing up Defence QC Ian Duguid told the jury the shooting "has all the hallmarks of organised crime whether this is organised crime or not." 

In his own remarks the judge had also emphaised that the motive for the murder was not clear.

It has since been suggested that Welsh was inadvertently caught up in a feud between rival Edinburgh crime factions.

They in in turn had links - and taken sides - with two well known feuding crime families in Glasgow.

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It also emerged that police had been told that Welsh's life was in danger but the warnings were never passed to him.

The Welsh family subsequently complained to Police Scotland and the force gave them an unreserved apology.

They admitted several unnamed high-ranking officers were aware of the threat but it was deemed "not real or credible" at the time.

Only weeks before his murder Welsh gave an interview to podcaster James English, where he appeared to have a premonition of his own murder.

He spoke of a wave of gun crime in the capital telling English: "Firearms are very prevalent in Edinburgh.

"That seems to be the new game."  

Mourners at the scene of the killing

Graeme Pearson, former head of the Scottish Crime and Drugs Enforcement Agency, believes it can be difficult for people with previous links to organised crime, to shake off their past.

He says some choose to keep up old friendships, even though they are no longer actively involved in any criminality. Something which may have contributed to Bradley Welsh's murder.

Mr Pearson explained:"The key here is how do you break free?

"How do you create a distance between you and your past?

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"There is no way that you can go half way.

"You can't play inside and outside the game at the same time."

Mr Pearson then added:"You need to be completely outside.

"If you are outside, then there is an acknowledgement that you are not part of the 'tit for tat' that can be criminality.

"However if you seem to come and go with it, then you become fair game."