In April 1977, 26-year-old Hugh Collins was drinking in the Lunar 7 bar on Buchanan Street in Glasgow. Among the crowd was William Mooney, a gangland rival. This film follows Collins from that night to the Barlinnie Special Unit, and out the other side as a sculptor and author.
The Lunar 7
According to the trial evidence, the pair argued and a fight broke out. Mooney pulled a bread knife but was too late to use it. Collins stabbed him several times, once between the ribs, and Mooney died at the scene. Collins later said he went completely berserk.
Violence ran in the family. His father, William Collins, had been jailed for 10 years for a razor attack on a dancehall manager, and Hugh was raised by his grandmother. He had been fighting the Calton Tongs since he was 15.
Collins pleaded not guilty, to the fury of his co-accused, Joe Devlin, who told the jury Collins should take full responsibility. Devlin was cleared. Collins got life. Outside the court, Mooney's widow was held back by police.
The worst prisoner in Scotland
Collins was given a recommendation of 16 years. He wanted a move to a lifers' wing in Glasgow, and when it was refused he vowed to kill the officer he blamed. On a routine trip to the surgery he attacked three officers with a sharpened needle and a craft knife. The fight lasted, by his account, about 20 minutes. He spent the next year in a cell with no window. He said he never apologised for it.
The Special Unit
Then came Barlinnie's Special Unit, where cell doors were open 15 hours a day, prisoners wore their own clothes and staff treated them as people rather than threats. Collins began drawing. One fine line drawing of Christ on the cross, a member of staff recalled, he later slashed with a blade. Then he began to sculpt: animals for Edinburgh Zoo that blind visitors could feel, and a nine-foot figure of Christ carved inside the prison walls.
He wrote thousands of pages, which became Autobiography of a Murderer, then Walking Away and the novel No Smoke. On day release to Edinburgh's 369 Gallery he met the painter Caroline McNairn. They married in 1993, shortly after his release.
After Caroline died in 2010, Collins withdrew to the Scottish Borders. He never reoffended. When he died in August 2021, aged 70, some remembered a murderer. Others remembered proof that even the most violent men can change.