Lewis Mullen was handed an extended 11-year sentence after a jury found him guilty of killing Jack Trainner, 27, near his home in Port Glasgow, Inverclyde.
A 25-year-old man who killed his friend in a knife attack outside his victim’s flat has been jailed for nine years at the High Court in Dundee.
Lewis Mullen was handed an extended 11-year sentence after a jury found him guilty of killing Jack Trainner, 27, near his home in Port Glasgow, Inverclyde. The jury accepted there had been provocation during a row between the friends on April 27 2024 and cleared Mullen of the more serious charge of murder.
However, they rejected his claim that he had acted in self-defence and that he had been carrying the large knife to gut fish. The court heard he had two previous convictions for carrying weapons and the two-year extension was added because he was assessed as posing a high risk to the public.
Lord Renucci told Mullen: “The trial has shown not just that you are prepared to carry a weapon in a public place, but also that you are someone who is prepared to use that knife. Had you not left your house with a knife and removed it from your rucksack, and followed him armed with the knife into flats, then this offence would not have occurred.
“You claimed you were carrying the knife for fishing and you saw no issue with this. You might not see an issue with it, but the court and society does. You were not fishing when you went out to source drugs. No-one requires a blade that size to gut fish. It is disappointing that one thing missing in the report is any real expression of remorse.
“It highlights your propensity to carry weapons. I have read victim impact statements from the victim’s mother and ex-partner on behalf of his children. You should be under no illusion about the scale of their loss and the lifelong impact upon them.”
Counsel for Mullen, Thomas Ross KC, said his client had been “self-medicating” by taking drugs and was under the influence of street valium at the time of the attack. Mullen attacked Mr Trainner by repeatedly stabbing him on the knife and body. The trial heard that Mr Trainner had pulled out a knife initially.
The court had heard how the men would sometimes meet up to play video games together. Mullen said he turned up at Mr Trainner’s flat on the day of the killing in April 2024 thinking “it would be like any other time and he would invite me in”.
But he added: “When I knocked, I could see that he was aggressive right away”. A struggle then spilled outside before Mullen followed Mr Trainner back into the common close of the block of flats.
The killer said his victim went at him with a knife before Mullen struck him with a purple-bladed weapon that he had in rucksack. Mullen said he believed he had only struck his friend once in the chest, but it emerged he also had a cut near his eye.
Asked by his KC Thomas Ross how long he had to “assess his options” that day, he replied: “Seconds – it all happened so quickly”. He said he believed that, had he turned his back, he would have been stabbed.
Mullen left the scene, but later handed himself in to police after he discovered Mr Trainner had died. During the trial, prosecutor Wojciech Jajdelski asked Mullen why he had not simply “walked away” after they had gone outside.
He replied: “We were friends. This was not the Jack I knew. I thought I could calm him down.” After the verdict, the court was told Mullen had a number of previous convictions, but had never previously received a prison sentence.
