CLUELESS

Cops apologise to family of murdered estate worker for failing to spot he had been shot FOR 5 DAYS

- MARK McGIVERN

POLICE have apologised to the family of a murdered estate worker after failing to realise he had been shot for five days.

David Campbell, 77, was jailed for life at the High Court in Glasgow yesterday after shooting dead former colleague Brian Low following a long-running feud.

But a judge told the killer that "serious errors" by police early on in the inquiry meant that he thought he may have "got away with the murder".

Campbell was convicted at the High Court in Glasgow despite vital evidence being destroyed at the crime scene when cops initially treated the killing as non-suspicious.

Brian, 65, had been sprayed with more than 30 shotgun pellets in the face, neck and chest.

But officers marked his death as accidental thinking he'd suffered a fall.

Police finally launched a murder inquiry after shotgun pellets fell out of the body bag at Brian's post-mortem.

During a three-week trial, the High Court in Glasgow heard the defendant loathed the ex-groundsman.

Campbell had denied murder but yesterday after three days of deliberation, the jury returned a majority quilty verdict.

Judge Lord Scott told the killer: "Due to serious errors early in the police inquiry you thought you had literally got away with murder.

"If so, you were wrong." After the guilty verdict, Detective Chief Superintendent Lorna Ferguson was forced to admit the force had rewritten its guidelines to ensure no such error would happen again.