Moira witness jailed for attack

Mulheron denied making a confession that he killed Moira Jones

A sex offender who attacked a woman near Glasgow's Queen's Park weeks before the murder of Moira Jones will spend at least five years in jail.

Jason Mulheron, 37, was sentenced after he admitted indecently assaulting a 44-year-old woman in April last year.

He was placed on a lifelong restriction order, meaning he will only be freed when a parole board considers it safe.

At the Moira Jones' murder trial, Mulheron denied telling a former girlfriend he killed the businesswoman.

The High Court in Edinburgh had heard how his victim was walking near Queen's park, listening to music through earphones, when Mulheron put an arm round her neck.

Threatened rape

He told the woman that he had a knife and threatened to rape and murder her.

The court heard that the woman felt something sticking into her back through her leather coat and that Mulheron punched her when she screamed for help.

After indecently assaulting the woman, he took her handbag and ran into the park.

He was arrested a month later and, in court, admitted assault with intent to rape.

Judge Lady Dorrian ordered he spend at least five years and three months in prison.

Serial liar

The court heard that at the time of the attack on 3 April last year, Mulheron's name was still on the sex offenders register following a carbon-copy sexual assault on a woman at Mount Florida railway station in Glasgow in 1999.

Mulheron blamed both attacks on his heavy drinking.

He appeared in the witness box at the Moira Jones murder trial earlier this week, as one of three men Marek Harcar's defence team had blamed for the 40-year-old's killing.

The murder trial heard claims that just days before his arrest for the attempted rape, Mulheron phoned his ex-girlfriend Caroline Daly and told her: "I done the murder of that lassie in the park."

Faced with Mulheron's denials, Harcar's defence QC, Paul McBride, called him a sex offender of the vilest type and a serial liar.