Killer gets 9 years for stabbing ex-soldier

Kristian Nelson. Picture: Police Scotland

A killer who stabbed a former soldier to death in his home city after he completed tours of duty with the British Army in the Middle East was jailed for nine years today.

Police officers followed a trail of blood from wounded Robbie Morrison to the home of his attacker in Edinburgh’s Wester Hailes area.

The ex-Scottish infantryman was knifed in the leg by Kristian Nelson during an assault and later died in hospital.

A judge told Nelson at the High Court in Edinburgh that he had had the chance to throw the knife away but deliberately used it to stab his victim.

Lord Glennie said: “You have an unenviable record, including two offences of assault to injury or severe injury and one assault with a hammer. This time it was a knife and the consequences were fatal.”

The judge told Nelson that he would have jailed him for 10 years, but for his earlier guilty plea to culpable homicide.

Nelson, who was originally accused of murdering Mr Morrison, previously admitted a reduced charge of killing his victim

He admitted striking him on the leg with a knife at Dumbryden Gardens, in Edinburgh, on August 22 last year.

Unemployed Nelson, 37, formerly of Dumbryden Gardens, admitted stabbing the victim, but said: “I didn’t mean to kill him.”, the court heard.

Nelson’s co-accused Colin Craig, 46, of Murrayburn Place, in Edinburgh, had also originally faced a charge of murdering Mr Morrison, 31, but the Crown earlier accepted his guilty plea to assault.

Craig tripped Mr Morrison, who fell to the ground, after he tried to run away following a confrontation with Nelson. He also dumped the knife used to kill the victim along with a bloodstained jumper in a canal.The judge deferred sentence on Craig for a year.