Police ScotlandA former lawyer who plotted to kill a prosecutor has been moved to a medium secure mental health unit ahead of his sentencing in May.
Martin Ready, 42, was found guilty of attempting to conspire to murder Darren Harty by using cryptocurrency to pay for a hitman on the dark web following a trial at the High Court in Glasgow last year.
He accessed a website called the “Online Killers Market” in an bid to have the procurator fiscal killed in a “gangland-style execution”.
Judge Lady Hood said she was “satisfied” on the basis of medical reports that Ready was mentally ill and suffered from delusions.
He used the alias “Harry Brown” to pay for the murder, which he claimed was during a delusional period where he believed he was an “evil Jesus” figure.
But a jury dismissed his claims that he lacked criminal responsibility and found him guilty of attempted conspiracy to murder.
Money laundering claims
Ready claimed the bar run by Mr Harty’s family in Coatbridge, North Lanarkshire, was being used to launder money for criminals.
The men knew each other from the pub, but the court heard they had not seen each other for years before the plot.
Ready said killing Mr Harty would have “shone a light” on criminal activity in the town.
Mr Harty has strongly denied any suggestion that he was involved in money laundering for two named crime families.
Ready transferred 0.2913 Bitcoin – valued at £5,071 – to the administrator of the website and gave a graphic description of how the killing was to be carried out.
The name Harry Brown he used was the same name as the main character in the 2009 Michael Caine film, who took the law into his own hands after his only friend was murdered.
The court heard how it later emerged that the website – only accessible via the dark web – was a front for a lucrative scam.
The offences were carried out between May 2021 and September 2022.
Ready was arrested after a journalist investigating the highly-encrypted online network contacted police.
He denied the charge and lodged a special defence of lacking criminal responsibility, but was convicted and remanded in custody at HMP Barlinnie.
At the High Court in Kilmarnock, judge Lady Hood issued an interim compulsion order requiring Ready to be moved to the Rowanbank Clinic medium secure unit in Glasgow.
The order had been delayed for weeks until a bed became free at the unit.
Ready’s lawyer Brian McConnachie KC said the order would last for a period of 12 weeks, which meant he could be sentenced on 5 May.
Lady Hood said she was “satisfied” on the basis of medical reports that Ready was mentally ill.
“Reports have been prepared by two psychiatrists,” she said.
“They are both of the opinion that you suffer a mental disorder, namely delusional disorder.”
She told him that his case had been continued “in order to ascertain that place is available in a suitable hospital, which would be able to accept you in the timescale set out in legislation”.
The judge said the order would authorise his admittance to, and treatment at, Rowanbank Clinic, until the case calls again at the High Court in Glasgow.
Ready attended the hearing remotely over video link from Barlinnie prison. He showed no reaction as the order was handed down.
