Brian Low was out enjoying the simple pleasure of a Saturday morning dog walk in the Perthshire hills when he was killed.
Guns are not unusual in rural communities, where game shooting is part of the fabric of life.
Fortunately, gun crime is rare and news of Brian’s violent death was met with disbelief among the tight-knit Aberfeldy community where he lived.
But in addition to shock, his killing has also led to a very real disquiet at the organisation whose job it is to track down his murderer.
Senior figures such as John Swinney have, rightly, not held back in their criticism of a Police Scotland investigation that, to date, has been at best inept and at worst incompetent.
The admission by senior detectives that evidence could have been lost at a murder scene – by a probe that for at least four days failed to identify that a victim had been unlawfully killed – is so stark as to be almost unbelievable.
That it has come in a week in which the force has had to apologise for its gross mishandling of the Emma Caldwell murder investigation, marks a new nadir for an organisation with an already chequered history.
But the issues with the Low murder investigation stretch far beyond the potential loss of vital evidence.
Serious questions to be answered
For example, questions with less than adequate answers from Police Scotland right now include:
- Why was Mr Low’s death not recognised as murder more quickly than it was?
- Why was there a delay in the post mortem process?
- Why did it take another day after criminality was established for the victim’s family to be informed?
- And on the subject of communication, how on earth did it take Police Scotland a full 10 days – several days after the murder probe was belatedly launched – to tell the community that a killer was on the loose?
For the police, this is shaping up to be the sorriest of debacles and will inevitably spawn inquiries down the line.
But for now they have a job to do in tracking down the highly dangerous individual – or individuals – that so callously ended Brian Low’s life.
There can be no more mistakes. Only 100% focus will do.
The trust that is required of the public for policing by consent to work has been severely stretched in recent days.
The hard work of regaining that trust begins now with delivering justice for Brian Low and his devastated family.
