Teenager murdered migrant worker

Adam Gallagher had denied murdering Marek Smrz

A teenager has been found guilty of murdering an eastern European man who came to Scotland to start a new life.

Adam Gallagher, 18, stabbed Czech Marek Smrz through the heart with a steak knife in Arbroath on 18 July last year.

Gallagher, who denied the charge, was convicted by a jury of nine men and six women following a trial at the High Court in Perth.

Mr Smrz, 21, was working as a fruit picker after being advised he could find a job in the Angus area.

The court heard that on the day Mr Smrz was killed in Arbroath's Marketgate area, Gallagher and his former girlfriend Hazel Dryden, 18, had earlier found him collapsed on the ground near a pub and smelling of alcohol.

Majority verdict

Ms Dryden, who said she and Gallagher had been heroin addicts at the time, admitted to stealing Mr Smrz's wallet and told the court she then saw a scuffle between the two men.

Former waiter Mr Smrz, who was killed less than three months after leaving his home village in the Czech Republic to come to Scotland, died almost instantly in the attack.

Mr Smrz died almost instantly in the knife attack

He had been working on East Seaton Farm, near Arbroath.

The jury took two and a half hours to find Gallagher of Millgate Loan, Arbroath, guilty by a majority after the six-day trial.

The trial was told that there was no way Mr Smrz would have survived the fatal blow "even if it had happened in a hospital car park."

Gallagher and his girlfriend ran off leaving Mr Smrz bleeding to death in the street.

The court heard Gallagher, who sat with his head bowed as the verdict was read out, told a friend what he had done shortly after committing the murder.

The jury dismissed a claim that Gallagher had acted in self-defence.

Judge Lord Wheatley, who was told Gallagher had a number of previous convictions, deferred sentence until a later date to obtain background reports.