Alleged Skye murderer 'followed onto mainland by marked police cars before second shooting occurred'

A man accused of murdering his brother-in-law was followed off a Scottish island onto the mainland by two marked police cars before another shooting was carried out, a court has heard.

A police officer in one of the following vehicles estimated they travelled about seven to eight miles from the Isle of Skye to the village of Dornie, in Ross-shire, and was told not to stop the car ahead by an inspector at a control room in Dundee.

Sergeant Christopher Tait, 36, was giving evidence at the trial of Finlay MacDonald who has denied murdering his brother-in-law at his home on Skye on August 10, 2022.

MacDonald, 41, is also accused of attempting to murder his wife Rowena, 34, by stabbing her at the family home on Skye and attempting to murder John and Fay MacKenzie in a shooting at their home in Dornie on the same day.

The officer, who was a police constable at the time, said he was initially instructed to attend a report of a stabbing on the island at Tarskavaig but received an update that there had been a shooting.

John MacKinnon died after a firearm was discharged on Skye Police ScotlandiStock

He told the High Court in Edinburgh he was passed information about a vehicle belonging to MacDonald and said: “I spotted the accused’s vehicle going past me.”

He did a three point turn, contacted his control room and began to follow the Subaru Impreza before he was joined by a police inspector in another car.

Advocate depute Liam Ewing KC asked him how the Subaru was being driven and he said: “It appeared to be driven in a normal fashion within the rules of the road and was within the speed limit in my view.”

They travelled over the Skye bridge and continued to follow the car to Dornie where the driver sped up before stopping at a house.

He saw the driver at the top of a driveway holding a firearm and aiming through a window of the house before the weapon was fired through the window.

The accused went into the house and he and his colleague ran up the driveway and shouted on the gunman to drop his weapon before a Taser was fired at him and an injured man and woman were found inside the home.

Mr Ewing said to the officer: “I understand the operational decisions about what happened that day were not taken by you.”

He replied: “No.”

The prosecutor said: “I mean no criticism of anyone involved, but let me ask you this: did you consider an attempt to stop the Subaru at any point?”

The police officer said: “It did enter my head to come up with a plan to try and stop him but at the time I was told specialist firearms officers were coming up to stop him.”

The prosecutor said: “The instruction you received was not to attempt to stop the Subaru.”

The sergeant said: “That’s correct, yes.”

He said he had his blue lights and siren on when he initially passed the Subaru and did a three point turn to begin following it but they were then switched off.

Donald Findlay KC, defence counsel for MacDonald, asked him why and he said: “I was instructed by the control room.”

He said the control room was in Dundee and he was told firearms officers were travelling from Inverness.

Mr Findlay asked if it was only when the gun was fired and the man went into the house at Dornie that he and the inspector made a run towards the house and he said: “Yes”.

He said: “I believe I heard shouting and screaming from the house as we were running towards it.”

The officer said he discharged his Taser twice at the gunman. He said the male occupant of the house was on the floor and had a large amount of blood around his abdomen. A woman was also there with “obvious facial injuries” who was screaming at the accused.

Prosecutor Liam Ewing KC said to sergeant Christopher Tait that as he approached the house in Dornie he did not have a gun but only batons and a Taser he replied: “Yes.”

Mr Ewing said it turned out that the male in the house, John MacKenzie, was very badly injured. Sergeant Tait said: “Yes, he was.”

The court heard from the second officer who followed the suspect in the nearest police car, inspector Bruce Crawford, 40, who was asked if he made an attempt to stop the vehicle ahead.

He said: “I requested permission to try and stop the vehicle and was told by the control room not to stop the vehicle.”

He said that when they arrived in Dornie he saw the driver in possession of a shotgun at a house and he formed the opinion that he was there to cause harm to the occupants of the address.

He said: “I started making my way towards him. It was at that point a lady came out of the side door of the house. I just shouted as loud as I possibly could to try to get his attention. I was shouting at the lady, ‘Get back in your house and lock your doors’.”

The inspector said the woman ran back inside and he saw the man bring the shotgun up to an aiming position on his shoulder before he fired through a window.

He shouted at him, telling him to put the gun down, but the man loaded the gun again before he headed into the house. The officer followed him into the house and heard two loud bangs and a woman screaming.

He found them in the hall with the male occupant bleeding heavily from his side grappling with the gunman and the woman also bleeding. He said the woman in the house was trying to get him off her husband and struck him with a metal toilet holder.

Inspector Crawford said he used PAVA spray – an incapacitant spray similar to pepper spray – on the attacker but it did not seem to have an effect before he struck him with a baton while his colleague used a Taser.

The court earlier heard that the sister of MacDonald said she was not aware her brother was autistic before he shot her husband dead in front of her infant son.

Lyn-Anne MacKinnon said she was aware her sibling Finlay MacDonald could be “quite socially awkward” and added: “I am aware he had some strange ways of thinking, strange views.”

Mrs MacKinnon, 45, whose pre-recorded evidence was played to the jury said: “I am aware that he could be quite socially awkward.”

She told Mr Findlay that she did not know that her brother was bullied at secondary school.

During questioning the defence counsel said jurors would become aware that on August 10, 2022 her brother came to her house and when he left he had shot her husband.

She said: “Yes, in front of my three-year-old son.”

The trial continues.