John Swinney has hit back at the suggestion Scotland will become a "less attractive" place to live and work following tax rises in the Budget.
28.11.2022 - 08:13 / dailyrecord.co.uk
A Scots SAS hero who executed his girlfriend with a Gulf War machine gun is feared to have returned here after being released early.
Veteran Thomas Shanks was jailed for life in April 2000 for the murder of Vickie Fletcher outside a pub in Castleford, Yorkshire.
Nurse Vickie, 21, was gunned down by the former soldier on May 7, 1998, after she dumped him for a former patient. The Glaswegian, then 47, and holder of the Military Medal, fled to his home city where he was captured.
It is feared he may have returned to the city and adopted a new identity after winning early release from an English prison.
A source said: “Shanks is a professional soldier and used to adopting a new identity and keeping a low profile. The fact that his release was not made public knowledge is surprising.”
Shanks dated Vickie for three years while they worked at the Pontefract General Infirmary. Crazed with jealousy, Shanks tracked Vickie and her new man to the pub and confronted them.
He then went home for the Kalashnikov, a trophy from his service in the Gulf War, and returned to the scene. He also had an axe, a sheath knife and a baseball bat in his car.
Shanks confronted Vickie again outside the pub and shot her. He drove to Glasgow and was arrested in a phone box in nearby Lennoxtown. Two cops were given bravery awards for catching him.
Shanks, who trained as an anaesthetist after leaving the SAS, denied murder but admitted manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
The plea was not accepted and a jury found him guilty of murder. He was jailed for a minimum of 18 years in 2008 when a law change forced judges to give a minimum tariff for lifers.
But because he was originally jailed in 2000 and had already served two years while
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