Teenager sentenced over punch death

Kayleigh Murray hit Paul Woods as he tried to chase after her friend who had stolen his alcohol
12 April 2012

A teenage woman who killed a father-of-two who was "in the wrong place at the wrong time" with a single punch has been locked up for more than six years.

Kayleigh Murray hit Paul Woods in a "senseless" attack as he tried to chase after her friend, who had stolen his alcohol.

Mr Woods, 29, fell backwards and hit his head on the ground, losing consciousness. He underwent surgery at Glasgow's Southern General Hospital but died the next day.

Murray, 20, admitted a charge of culpable homicide after the attack in Maryhill Road, Glasgow, on July 28 last year, while Chelsea Speirs, also 19, pleaded guilty to assault and robbing Mr Woods of a bag containing a bottle of alcohol.

Both teenagers have previous convictions for assault. Murray, who was intoxicated on a cocktail of Buckfast, cider and Valium when she killed Mr Woods, was on probation at the time of the offence.

At the High Court in Edinburgh, Judge Lord Pentland ordered Murray to be detained for six years and nine months. Imposing an extended sentence, he further ordered her to be supervised for three years and three months upon her release from custody on licence.

Speirs was sentenced to detention for two years and three months. The court heard she posed a high risk of reoffending and further ordered that she be placed under the watch of a supervising officer for a year after she was freed.

Passing sentence, Lord Pentland told Murray she must have delivered the fatal blow with "considerable force".

He said: "While you did not intend to kill Mr Woods, there is no doubt that drunken violence of the type in which you engaged can, all too often, result in tragic consequences of the type that ensued here.

"The terrible consequences for Mr Woods' immediate and wider family of your senseless violence are powerfully conveyed in a number of victim impact statements, to which I have given close consideration."

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