Fear of jail prompted Bristol killer's suicide

A psychopath who stabbed a young Bristol barmaid to death hanged himself because he feared he would be forced to leave Broadmoor Hospital and return to prison, a jury concluded yesterday.

Paul McMilan told staff at the high-security institution he did not want to serve the rest of his life sentence at a normal jail because he was worried about his safety.

The 27-year-old psychopath was jailed for manslaughter in 2001 after admitting butchering 22-year-old barmaid Shirley Cotton-Betteridge with a kitchen knife in a Bristol pub.

Returning a narrative verdict, the foreman of the jury of four men and four women said: "He was anxious as regards to his care pathway and was fearful of going back to prison. On the night of his death, staff disposition offered an opportunity for Paul's actions and he died from a self-applied ligature."

At his original sentencing, the judge, Mrs Justice Heather Hallett ordered McMilan to be sent to Broadmoor after medical reports concluded he had a schizoid personality disorder.

However, if his treatment there was successful he would be returned to prison to serve out his life sentence.

In early 2008, the mental health authority responsible for the killer's care at the institution in Crowthorne, Berkshire, suggested he may be ready for the transfer.

This unsettled heavily-depressed McMilan, who had previously served a three-year term for indecent assault, and he threatened to kill himself if he was ever made to return.

On May 22 last year the troubled patient carried out the threat, tying a torn bed sheet around his neck and suspending it from his door just moments after nurses had routinely checked his room.

Berkshire Coroner Peter Bedford heard that in the months leading up to his death, McMilan had told doctors he wished he had not done what he did and felt ashamed.

The killer, from Knowle, in Bristol, said he kept having suicidal thoughts and could see "no light at the end of the tunnel," prompting senior doctors to put him under intermittent observation.

Broadmoor Nurse Steven Lovesey told jurors at Windsor Guildhall: "Paul was disappointed that the views of the nursing team and the medical team at the hospital were not being replicated by the outside authorities.

"It was the prison aspect and potential of spending many years in prison that worried him."

McMilan had been convicted of indecent assault and causing grievous bodily harm in 1999 but was conditionally released from a young offenders' institution in August 2000. Less than a year later he killed his assistant manager Miss Cotton-Betteridge, while working at The Figurehead and Firkin pub on Bristol's Watershed.