Missing lag captured as another goes on the run

Sep 23 2011 by Denis Brown, Perthshire Advertiser Friday

ON the same day police collared a convicted killer on the run from HMP Castle Huntly, another lag vanished.

A manhunt for 47-year-old Samuel Stewart ended on Wednesday when police caught up with him in Edinburgh after he had been missing for a week when failing to return from home leave.

But it emerged yesterday that another lag with a violent history, Thomas McGarva (33), had failed to return to the open nick on the same day following one week of temporary release to Falkirk.

Confirming the latest disappearing act, a Tayside Police spokesman said McGarva had receieved a 32-month sentence at Glasgow Sheriff Court on June 6 last year after being convicted of assault and robbery.

McGarva, who transferred to Castle Huntly in February this year, is six-feet tall, bald and with blue eyes.

He has friends in the Falkirk area and and other associates in Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Stewart, who appeared before Perth Sheriff Court yesterday, was jailed for six years in 2004 after slashing a man across the face at an Edinburgh benefits office, with his victim’s wounds requiring 44 stitches.

And in 1995 he was jailed for six years for culpable homicide after he and another man were found guilty of killing brothers Paul and Scott Maguire.

Transferred from HMP Edinburgh to Castle Huntly last January, he is serving a sentence of five years, four months and 15 days handed down at the High Court in Edinburgh in August 2009.

He had been convicted of assault to severe injury and permanent disfigurement.

Controversy has plagued the Longforgan prison during the past few years following frequent vanishing acts by inmates.

One notorious con, Brian ‘The Hawk’ Martin, once described as the most dangerous man in Britain, surrendered himself to authorities a week after absconding in May 2009.

Convicted murderer Brian Barry McGowan (36) went on the run for three weeks in July, blaming the Sunday bus service for his no-show.

lContact Tayside Police on 0300 111 2222 or pass information anonymously to Crimestoppers by calling 0800 555 111.