Serial abuser Mark Campbell who murdered partner with tyre iron in Glenrothes to be sentenced

A violent serial abuser and rapist will be sentenced on Thursday after being convicted of murdering his partner.

Mark Campbell was found guilty last month of murdering Jane Fitzpatrick in Glenrothes, Fife, in August 2021.

He had induced Ms Fitzpatrick to discharge herself from hospital against medical advice before inflicting head injuries on her with a tyre iron.

Campbell, 37, was also convicted of a further 13 charges – 12 of them charges of assault and rape involving six other women.

He is due to appear at the High Court in Edinburgh for sentencing on Thursday.

Campbell had denied murdering Ms Fitzpatrick on August 8 or 9 in 2021 at Cable Road in Glenrothes, Fife, and claimed in evidence that he had slept through the attack on her when they were in the car.

He was found by police in the driver’s seat of his Citroen car with his dead victim beside him.

The trial judge, Lady Poole, told him: “The jury has found you guilty of serious charges of abusing women and murdering your most recent partner.”

She said six women were to be commended for their courage to come and give evidence of their treatment at Campbell’s hands.

Lady Poole told Campbell there was only one sentence for murder, life imprisonment, but she was required to set a minimum term he must serve and she deferred sentence on him for the preparation of a background report.

Before the murder, Ms Fitzpatrick went to the Victoria Hospital, in Kirkcaldy, after being sick and unsteady on her feet following a head injury.

Staff were told she hit her head after Campbell had to brake suddenly. Following the murder, no evidence of emergency braking was found on the tyres of his vehicle.

Campbell claimed that after she had left hospital they went to an industrial estate but she fell and banged her head. He said he had tried to stem the bleeding and they fell asleep in the car.

He said he first awoke when it was still dark and said she was okay at that point. He said: “I looked. She was sleeping. I could hear her.”

He said he fell asleep again and later awoke and found her dead, with his door open. He told the court: “Jane was gone.” He said he had tried to perform CPR on her.

Campbell later drove off from the scene but was found by police, sitting in the driver’s seat with his head down. He appeared to have blood on his trousers and around his fingernails.

A tyre iron was recovered from the car, which was used to inflict repeated blows to the head of the victim. She was also found to have sustained extensive fresh bruising.

Campbell, who has previous convictions for violence, was also convicted in June of assaulting six women and raping three of them between 2004 and 2020 at locations in Glenrothes, Kirkcaldy and Leven.

He was placed on the sex offenders’ register.