‘Evil Jesus’ locked up over dark web kill plot

A FORMER lawyer who claimed to identify as “evil Jesus” during a dark web plot to kill a prosecutor has been detained indefinitely.

- BY LUCINDA CAMERON

Martin Ready poses 'serious risk to public'

Martin Ready, 43, was found guilty of attempting to conspire to murder Darren Harty using cryptocurrency to pay for a hitman following a trial at the High Court in Glasgow last year.

Between May 2021 and September 2022, Ready, a former commercial contracts solicitor, paid the equivalent of £5,071.24 in Bitcoin and sent instructions for Mr Harty to be shot to a dark web site called Online Killers Market, which turned out to be fraudulent.

During the trial, Ready told the court he had suffered from delusions that he was “evil Jesus” and believed the murder of Mr Harty would expose organised crime in Coatbridge, Lanarkshire, where Mr Harty’s family owned a pub.

Ready appeared at the High Court in Glasgow yesterday for sentencing and a review of the interim compulsion order he was placed under having been diagnosed with a “delusional disorder”.