Man stabbed friend to death after row over lager

A man stabbed his friend to death after an apparently trivial row over cans of lager.

Reece Sweeney, 22, was convicted of murdering Jamie McGready at a flat in Summertown Path in Glasgow's Govan area on 31 August last year.

Friends and ambulance crews tried to save Mr McGready - nicknamed Jaggy - but he later died in hospital.

Sweeney - who had been on bail at the time - had denied killing the 33 year-old, whose partner was pregnant.

A six-day trial at the High Court in Glasgow heard that the pair had been at the flat where Michael O'Halloran lived with his 19 year-old son Sean-Paul.

The teenager recalled there being a "silly argument" between Mr McGready and Sweeney.

Asked by prosecutor Bill McVicar what it was about, he replied: "I think it was about cans of beer or something."

He said Sweeney "lunged" at Mr McGready and that was when he got "stabbed".

The victim was said to have stated: "You have done me. You have killed me."

Mr O'Halloran snr- who had known the victim since he was a child - recalled that he had earlier been unhappy at Sweeney for not sticking up for him in an argument with three men.

The witness said: "He was like a dog with a bone. If he said it once, he said it 30 times."

Mr O'Halloran said he was only aware something had happened at the flat when a woman, who was also there, shouted.

He found Mr McGready injured and said Sweeney had "gone". He tried to save Mr McGready by carrying out CPR for 12 minutes.

"I was shouting at Jamie: 'Stay with us, think of your daughter, think of your partner'," he said. "I was saying to Sean to breathe in his mouth while I kept pressure over the wounds.

"I was trying to get a pulse, but there was no pulse. I was just telling Jamie not to let go."

Mr McGready - who also lived in Govan - was taken to the city's Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, but died there having suffered a number of wounds including one in the middle of his chest.

Sweeney was also convicted of attempting to defeat the ends of justice.

After the verdict, prosecutor Mr McVicar told the court: "Mr McGready's parents have been in court for most of the trial and have obviously suffered a very significant loss."

Following Mr McGready's death, the victim's partner Natalie Graham posted an online tribute describing him as "my love - always and forever".

Sweeney will be sentenced in Edinburgh on 25 January after judge Lord Boyd adjourned the case for reports.