Mother’s agony as son’s brutal killer is released

A mum who considered suicide after a gang tortured and murdered her son has told of how she’s bracing herself for the release of one of his killers just six years after the attack.

In an exclusive interview with The Sunday Post, courageous Jo Jamieson, 56, revealed her disgust with the justice system and relived the nightmare that changed her family’s lives.

Killer Shaun Paton, 24, is due to be back on the streets next month having initially been sentenced to 10 years in a Young Offenders’ Institution for the culpable homicide of devoted dad-of-four Dean Jamieson, 30.

Colin Cowie, 26, and Kevin Leslie, 28, the other two members of the gang jailed for the murder in April 2006, continue to serve 18 and 20-year sentences respectively. All three, who were convicted at the High Court in Aberdeen, sought to appeal their conviction and sentence for the chillling crime which sent shockwaves throughout Aberdeenshire.

Jo, a child protection officer who has now emigrated in a desperate bid to rebuild her shattered life, said: “Initially I was full of rage and anger, but when I went to Australia I had a chance to reflect. “The rage was consuming me and destroying the person I was. I realised the hatred and venom wasn’t going to make any difference.

“When I got the letter saying Paton was due for release I was in a different place. It wasn’t rage. My greater concern was for the wider public. The justice system is a joke.”

But she admitted: “At one point I would have been incensed he would be out after only six years. But I believe in karma. He’ll get his comeuppance either in this life or the next. “I refuse to dwell on the fact he will be free and that I may bump into him when I’m back home in Scotland.”

She added: “Colin Cowie was on TV after he won a prize for hairdressing in prison, they said things were going well for him, that he had changed. I just thought there is no justice. “How did people think Dean’s family would feel when they saw that? It really annoyed me at the time.”

Fun-loving Dean, who enjoyed a joke and serenading his mum with the Robbie Williams’ song, Angels, had been out in Aberdeen and was making his way to the bus station at about 9pm for the journey home to Kemnay, where he shared a house with his wife, Carol, and their little ones. En route he made the fatal mistake of flagging-down what he thought was a taxi.

But he was picked up by his killers. They drove him to suburban Elrick Hill, robbed, stripped and repeatedly stabbed and beat him. He tried to run but was beaten to the ground.

The court also heard claims that Cowie filmed himself jumping on Mr Jamieson’s head and showed the footage on his mobile phone. Dean was left to die, bloodied and near-naked on that freezing night.

Jo said: “We later learned he had been chatting in the car, telling them about his family, showing him their photographs. They admitted in court he was just asking to be taken home.”

Jo, who has just become a gran for the eighth time, said: “Every time they appealed we had to go through the details and pain of Dean’s murder again.”

Leslie was refused leave to challenge his conviction but was permitted to appeal his sentence. He dropped the action in February last year after being warned judges might increase his jail term.

Cowie’s appeal against conviction and sentence was rejected in 2009. And the Supreme Court in Edinburgh denied Paton leave to appeal in 2007.

Jo, who had been campaigning for Dean’s Law a time limit of a year after conviction for appeals to be heard to allow victims’ families to find closure revealed she had to give up the fight when her employers at the time told her it constituted a professional conflict of interest.

Reliving the terrible night of Dean’s death Jo, who still has a house near Aberdeen, said: “It was about midnight. I was at a friend’s house and the police came with my younger son to the door. I knew something had happened.

“When they told me, I couldn’t believe it.”

Jo went to identify the body of her first born. “I didn’t want anyone else to do it,” she said.

“He was mine. When I saw it was him, I collapsed. I wanted to hold him but I wasn’t allowed to. They had to do a post-mortem examination. I felt the heart had been ripped out of me. I kept asking myself why did Dean get into that car?”

She said she wouldn’t have coped without family and friends and the unbending support of Grampian Police’s Family Liaison team. When the court case loomed she battled for it to be held in Aberdeen so Dean’s widow, Carol, could attend without childcare worries, with other family members. She attended every day of the five week trial, knowing that she would hear horrors no mother could bear.

Jo explained: “I wanted to go. I wanted the judge and the jury to see me there, to look me in the eye, knowing what had happened to Dean. I wanted the lads who did it to see me.

“I was sitting right next to next them and thought if I had a gun I could blow their heads off but I don’t have it in me to kill. That would make me as evil as them.”

But it took its toll. Jo mum to Paul, 34, Gareth, 32, and Kerrie, 30 was suicidal. “I just wanted to end it, but I have a friend who is a clairvoyant. She told me Dean wanted me to know if I did that, we wouldn’t be together anyway, I would go to a different place. It was like getting a call from him, telling me to deal with it.”

And she said she sensed the spirit of her lost son at her side throughout the hearing, holding her hand at the most agonising moments.

Since moving to Darwin in Australia after being head-hunted for a programme supporting its Aboriginal population, she’s turned her life around. Her family, along with Carol and the couple’s children have followed suit. She said: “Carol is a wonderful mother. She’s done a great job in bringing up three boys on her own. They were just little when Dean died but they still speak about their dad and I see him in them.” Dean’s oldest son, Paul, won a scholarship to study at Aberdeen’s prestigious private secondary school, Robert Gordon’s, and his daughter to his first partner is at college.

Carol said: “I miss Dean every day. I can’t forget what happened but I’ve learned to cope. My children have been great. I couldn’t do it without them.”

And Jo who, six years on, puts her trust in God and the wisdom of “doing to others as you would have done to you” added: “Dean would have wanted me to forgive. He was the softest, happiest soul. He never held a grudge.

“I know he would forgive. He wouldn’t live with hate.”