Carstairs retains an unsettling aura, 80 years after it was build to accommodate “mental defectives”
The sight and sound of a police helicopter in the sky above the State Hospital in Carstairs on April 24 this year would be enough to chill the bones of those old enough to remember a notorious and murderous “jailbreak” back in 1976.
The latest incident was duly contained after police and ambulance roared to the scene, a forbidding secure hospital set on exposed moorland in South Lanarkshire.
But the alarm bells would have stirred unsettling memories for some and provide a reminder of the many horrific crimes committed by people deemed to be too mentally ill to be detained in a regular prison.
The State Hospital – generally referred to simply as “Carstairs” – has held an unsettling aura in Scotland’s consciousness in the 80 years since it was built.
Many of its patients have committed the most serious crimes. But it is not a prison.
And it is very different to a conventional hospital, charged with treating some patients whose crimes were beyond the imagination of others.
The hospital is surrounded by high fences and monitored constantly. A distinctive siren system—tested monthly—warns nearby communities in the event of an escape.
The building of Carstairs completed in 1939, just as the Second World War broke out. It was requisitioned as a military hospital.
It took 19 years for the facility to be used for its original purpose – treating “mental defectives”.
Its defining transformation came in 1957, when 90 prisoners deemed criminally insane were transferred from Perth Prison, creating a single high-security psychiatric institution serving Scotland.
From that point on, the State Hospital became the country’s only maximum-security psychiatric hospital—a role it still holds today.
At its peak in the late 20th century, Carstairs held hundreds of patients. Parliamentary records show that in 1969 the hospital population stood at 367, gradually falling to around 268 by 1983.
By 1990 there were 163 patients who had committed offences, 59 mentally ill patients without criminal convictions and 44 with learning disabilities.
Today, the hospital has a capacity of roughly 140 patients, reflecting changes in psychiatric care and a move toward smaller, more specialised units. The average stay is around eight years, though some have been detained for decades. Most patients have suffered from schizophrenia.
Despite its clinical purpose, Carstairs’ reputation has been shaped by the crimes of some of its most notorious patients.
*The bloody escape and murders of Robert Mone and Thomas McCulloch.
In November 1976, two violent patients, Thomas McCulloch and Robert Mone, launched a violent escape attempt that shocked Britain and sealed Carstairs’ reputation as a place of potential terror.
Armed with axes, Mone, 27, and McCulloch, 26, murdered nurse Neil McLellan, 46, and another inmate, 40-year-old double murderer Iain Simpson.
Police officers George Taylor and John Gillies were also later attacked after the approached the killers beside a getaway car.
PC Gillies managed to escape and raise the alarm at a nearby house but PC Taylor died later in hospital.
The two escapees stole the police van, which they crashed 10 miles away near Biggar.
As a 19-year-old, monster Mone had held a girls’ needlework class at St John’s High School in Dundee, Scotland, hostage for 90 minutes. During the siege, he shot pregnant teacher Nanette Hanson to death, raped one schoolgirl, and sexually assaulted another.
*Alexander Millar: the Govan child murders
Another name associated with Carstairs is Alexander Millar, responsible for one of Scotland’s most disturbing crimes. In 1976, – the same year as the Mone and McCulloch breakout – Millar murdered two children—12-year-old Irene McMonigle and her 13-year-old brother, John, .during a botched robbery in Govan, Glasgow.
The little girl was also sexually assaulted.
Millar was held for 49 years in secure accommodation, including Carstairs, until July last year.
The killer was been deemed fit for release following a Mental Health tribunal in England.
Irene and John were discovered amid a scene of horror by their younger sister Liz and father John senior, who had left their Govan tenement for just a few minutes to take some belongings to a new house which they were moving into nearby.
His location has not been disclosed, although he is understood to be in the south of England.
*James Kennedy – a recent addition to Carstairs.
Kennedy, 37, struck up a relationship with Joanne Gallacher, 33, after the pair met during psychiatric treatment at Hairmyres Hospital in East Kilbride.
He later inflicted 57 wounds on her during a frenzied attack at his home in Biggar, Lanarkshire, in December 2018.
A fatal accident inquiry heard Joanne should have been warned by medics about his risk of violence in the lead up to her death.
The 33-year-old mother had visited Kennedy just hours after he was released from hospital because she feared he was in a “bad place”.
Kennedy, who had previous psychiatric issues, pled guilty a reduced charge of culpable homicide.
Lord Mulholland imposed compulsion and restriction orders for Kennedy to remain at Carstairs.
He told Kennedy that he may never be released from the secure psychiatric facility.
*Kevin Marks – who laughed as he killed his ex-partner by setting her on fire.
Marks, 48, drove Ann Drummond to a remote location near Bathgate, West Lothian, on 25 June 2019.
He then set her alight before standing over her as she rolled around on the ground in a bid to put out the flames.
Marks was charged with murder but his not guilty plea was accepted on the basis of a mental disorder making him not criminally responsible.
The High Court in Edinburgh heard how paramedics rushed to the scene after members of the public spotted the car on fire and took Ann to hospital, suffering burns to 80% of her body. The mother-of-four later died at Glasgow’s Royal Infirmary.
Induced coma
Marks was placed in a medically-induced coma after he was found to have burns on 50% of his body. He later recovered from his injuries.
In 2024, Sheriff Peter Hammond concluded that the horror could have been avoided if Police Scotland had shared relevant information relating to the killer’s mental state with her and NHS staff prior to the incident.
Get more Daily Record exclusives by signing up for free to Google’s preferred sources. Click HERE.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login