A Scots killer who developed an insatiable appetite for violence gouged, slashed, and stabbed innocent victims with a razor.
Patrick Carraher became the second man hanged at Barlinnie prison as a result of his sickening crimes. The blood-thirsty criminal terrorised the streets of Glasgow with a razor blade which he concealed menacingly in his hand.
The nicknamed “Fiend of the Gorbals” was born in 1906 into a working-class family. He developed a hefty appetite for street fighting from a young age and was sent to a borstal – a type of youth detention centre – aged just 14.
His first experience of imprisonment didn’t set him on the straight and narrow, though. He spent the rest of his life in and out of Scottish prisons while causing bloody mayhem on the streets as a free man.
In 1938, Carraher stabbed 23-year-old James Emden but served just three years behind bars after he was convicted of culpable homicide. Every stint as a lag only made him more of a hardened criminal and he began using violence to maintain his tough exterior and lifestyle.
In fact, he revelled in his time in jail where knife was crime was the norm, and razor slashing became his terrifying act of choice.
Writing in his book Killers, Crooks and Cons: Scotland’s Crimes of the Century, Reg McKay, Daily Record journalist and Scottish author wrote: “By 1938, aged 32, he had stabbed, slashed and gouged his way through life.
“More often than not, the victims were hapless, innocent bystanders. Worse, he had developed a serious booze problem, making his temper simmer constantly.”
Carraher got banged up in Barlinnie just as World War II broke out and Glasgow was safer without his trail of destruction. But when the war ended in 1945 and he was let out, it was clear his violent reign was far from over.
His final act of terror was on 23 November 1945, when he murdered soldier John Gordon during a drunken fight.
Gordon had returned home and was having celebratory drinks at a Glasgow pub with his brothers when he had an argument with Carraher’s right-hand man Daniel Bonnar – who was also the brother of The Fiend’s girlfriend.
The soldier fled the scene but the two thugs tracked him down looking to settle the feud and things quickly turned into a horrifying street fight.
McKay wrote: “When the fight started, Bonnar once again ran but Carraher simply reached out and punched John Gordon in the neck. Well, that’s what it looked like.
“But as people, including his own girlfriend would later testify, Carraher had slipped a razor sharp chisel into his pocket as he left home.
“He hadn’t punched John Gordon but plunged the blade into his neck. The man died in hospital in less than an hour.”
The Daily Record covered the trial in 1946 which saw Carraher accused of killing Gordon. He denied the charges. We reported that Carraher sat in the dock and “turned frequently to smile at two women in the public seats”.
The defence tried to argue that the two-inch long chisel blade could not have produced a wound of four inches deep. They also tried to bring in doctors to say he was psychopath, claim diminished responsibility and hope for a lesser sentence. But it wasn’t enough and the jury took just 20 minutes to find The Fiend guilty.
A total of 10 judicial executions by hanging took place at HMP Barlinnie, replacing the gallows at Duke Street Prison before the death penalty was eventually abolished in the UK in 1969.
In 1946, Carraher was hanged there and by that time he had spent almost half his life locked away for his harrowing crimes.
Many Scots believed that The Fiend of the Gorbals should never have been freed to roam the streets of Glasgow after his first run-in with the law.
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