Family of Brian Low tell of anger at police mistaking murder for ‘medical event’

The family of murder victim Brian Low have spoken of their anger at the fact that police initially missed that he had been fatally shot.

In a new BBC documentary on the case, Mr Low’s brother Douglas said he was “so angry and so sad” when he heard in court that police did not immediately recognise the shotgun injuries.

Ex-gamekeeper David Campbell, 77, shot his former colleague Mr Low, 65, on February 16, 2024, on a country track near Aberfeldy.

Campbell had disabled CCTV cameras at his home in Aberfeldy in an attempt to conceal his whereabouts.

However, he was found guilty following a three-week trial at the High Court in Glasgow earlier this year.

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, who was killed while walking his dog, had around 30 injuries from shotgun pellets.

The BBC documentary, titled The Murder Trial: Death Of A Dog Walker, heard from prosecutors involved in the case who believed Campbell carried out the murder due to a long-held grudge against Mr Low.

This is thought to have stemmed from the time when they worked at the Edradynate Estate in Perthshire together.

Members of Mr Low’s family spoke in the documentary about their experience of attending the trial, where they saw graphic images of the shotgun wounds on his body.

Douglas Low said: “I was so angry and so sad at the same time.

“How could this happen?”

He said the images were “so horrific I barely kept my breakfast down”.

He added: “I can’t imagine why someone would say that’s a medical event.”

Brian Low’s niece, Jacqui Low, said: “It just seems incredible that they didn’t see the marks on his face, the shot.”

A detective constable who had arrived at the scene of Mr Low’s murder initially assessed that cuts on the victim’s hands and face were “consistent with him having fallen”.

Campbell’s defence lawyer challenged the detective, saying it had been a “glaring mistake”.

Pam Curran, who was Mr Low’s partner of 22 years, also spoke on the documentary.

She said: “Everyone who met Brian liked him – I don’t think he had a bad bone in his body.”

She said she had been “shocked” to discover he had been shot.

Ms Curran told the documentary that Campbell appeared to have fallen out with Mr Low due to the fact that they had both worked at the Edradynate Estate seven years prior to the murder.

She said Campbell had been investigated over wildlife crime at the estate and was angered by something he believed Mr Low had told police.

Campbell was jailed for life and ordered to serve a minimum of 19 years behind bars by judge Lord Scott.

He later appealed against his conviction, but this was refused.

Detective chief superintendent Lorna Ferguson acknowledged the investigation into Mr Low’s death “fell short of what Police Scotland and the public rightly expects”.

She said she had “personally” apologised to Mr Low’s family for the failings.