Skye murder trial: Osteopath disarmed former patient after he 'shot him and his wife'

A retired osteopath disarmed a former patient after the man shot him and his wife at their family home in the Highlands, a murder trial has heard.

John MacKenzie, 65, told the High Court in Edinburgh that he was returning home from feeding pigs at their croft on August 10, 2022, when he heard someone shouting: “Drop the weapon. Drop the weapon.”

He said: “I knew there was something wrong when I heard that.”

Mr MacKenzie said he saw a man who he knew was Finlay MacDonald standing at a front window with a single barrelled shotgun. He said: “Straight away I knew this was a bad situation.”

He went inside to find his wife Fay with her face covered in blood and a towel around her head. He said: “I didn’t realise he had shot twice through the window. I didn’t hear any shots.”

He said his wife was “quite distressed” and said they needed to go into the bathroom and lock the door.

“I said, ‘Don’t worry, he will shoot me in the back once and I will take the gun off him’,” Mr MacKenzie told the court.

He said they were in the room and he was facing his wife who was looking over his shoulder and said: “There’s the man. There’s the man.”

Mr MacKenzie said he put his wife to the floor and told the court: “I lay on top of her to protect her and then he shot me in the back. The struggle for the gun occurred after that. I got up, took the gun off him.

“When I got up to tackle him, Fay would have been on the floor in the shower. My thought was, if I had the gun underneath he couldn’t get it”.

He then heard calls of “shots fired, shots fired” before police officers used a Taser.

Mr MacKenzie said as soon as he had seen the gun, he knew the gunman had one shot, and then he could disarm him.

Advocate depute Liam Ewing KC told him it would be agreed in the case that the gun was a pump action shotgun and Mr MacKenzie agreed his view of the weapon at the time of the incident was mistaken.

He told the court that he lost a kidney in the shooting incident as well as sustaining other injuries.

Mr MacKenzie said he was an osteopath for 40 years before retiring in April 2022. MacDonald had earlier contacted him complaining of chest pain and respiratory problems and had been off work for a year.

He said that after having two treatment sessions MacDonald claimed his back was uncomfortable.

Defence counsel Donald Findlay KC said jurors would hear that MacDonald became “fixated” with Mr MacKenzie over damage he believed was caused by treatment given to him.

Mr MacKenzie’s wife Fay, 65, said that on the morning of the shooting she was at the patio of their home before she heard shouting and saw a man with a gun. She said police were there and she was told to get back into the house and lock the door. She went back inside before she was shot in the face.

Marine engineer MacDonald, 41, is accused of attempting to murder Mr and Mrs MacKenzie at their home in Dornie on August 10, 2022 by discharging a shotgun at them.

He is also accused of attempting to murder his wife Rowena MacDonald, 34, on the same day at her home on Tarskavaig, in the Isle of Skye by repeatedly stabbing her.

He is further alleged to have murdered his brother-in-law distillery worker John MacKinnon at his home at Teangue on Skye on the same day by firing a shotgun at him.

MacDonald has denied the charges. The trial continues.