An ex-head gamekeeper gunned down a former colleague on a country track near Aberfeldy having harboured a “festering” grudge against him for years.
David Campbell, 77, murdered Brian Low, 65, on February 16, 2024, having disabled CCTV cameras at his home in the Perthshire town in an attempt to conceal his whereabouts.
Both men had worked at Edradynate Estate, where Campbell was head gamekeeper between May 1984 and February 2018 and Mr Low was a groundsman between August 2000 and February 2023.
Campbell shot Mr Low at Leafy Lane near Pitilie “having previously evinced malice and ill-will towards him”, leaving him so severely injured that he died at the scene.
Warning: This article contains images that viewers may find distressing
STV NewsHis body was found by a local man at about 8.30am on February 17.
During a near three-week trial at the High Court in Glasgow, the jury heard police initially treated Mr Low’s death as non-suspicious, and only began treating it as murder five days later.
This was despite the fact Mr Low had around 30 injuries from shotgun pellets, and that pellets fell from his body bag when it was brought to a mortuary.
During the trial the jury was told Campbell had harboured a “festering grievance” against Mr Low, believing him to have planted evidence on the estate to frame him for the illegal poisoning of birds of prey.
Alan StewartOn the day of the murder, Campbell switched off the CCTV system at his home in an attempt to conceal his whereabouts.
The 77-year-old then travelled to the scene of the killing on his wife’s e-bike, wearing a “hooded jacket” and armed with a shotgun carried in a bag slung on his back.
The court was shown CCTV footage showing a hooded cyclist riding down a road towards the track where the shooting occurred at 4.18pm, and then coming back the other way shortly after 5pm.
Mr Low was shot at about 4.52pm on February 16 – the time his phone is said to have stopped recording movement.
Prosecutor Greg Farrell told the jury that once Campbell reached the scene, “using his shotgun, he shot Brian Low, hitting him on the face, chest and neck, and left him for dead”.
He continued: “Brian Low was out with his dog Millie, going about his ordinary peaceful life. He was left to die on that track alone.
“That shotgun blast killed him within minutes or perhaps seconds. Brian Low had no chance. He was unarmed and unaware.
“This was a brazen, brutal and planned execution at a rural spot, a cowardly ambush motivated by nothing more than sheer malice.”
Campbell’s lawyer Tony Lenehan KC contested a number of points in the prosecution’s case, including the timing of the killing, and the claim his client is the cyclist in the CCTV footage.
He said in February 2024 Campbell had a “nice life” and a “loving partner”, and that in the hours before the killing he had been on the phone to the council’s planning department asking about changing his garage doors.
He questioned whether it was “remotely likely” his client would have harboured such an animus against Mr Low that he would “throw everything away” by killing him, so many years after the event that is said to have triggered it.
Campbell had originally faced eight charges, including murder, breaches of the peace and attempting to defeat the ends of justice.
However, on Friday, all but the murder charge were dropped.
Follow STV News on WhatsApp
Scan the QR code on your mobile device for all the latest news from around the country
