Serial abuser who murdered grandmother found in car with dead victim next to him

Campbell, 37, had earlier induced Jane Fitzpatrick (48) to discharge herself from hospital against medical advice before savagely inflicting head injuries on her with a tyre iron. He had denied murdering his partner on August 8 or 9 in 2021 at Cable Road, and claimed in evidence that he had slept through the attack on her when they were in the car.

A jury at the High Court in Edinburgh unanimously found him guilty of the murder and convicted him of a further 13 charges, 12 of them charges of assault and rape involving six other women.

Trial judge, Lady Poole said six women were to be commended for their courage to come and give evidence of their treatment at Campbell's hands. She added: "What you did to these women was harrowing and shocking to listen to. Your behaviour has devastated lives."

Lady Poole told Campbell there was only one sentence for murder life imprisonment but she was required to set a minimum term he must serve, and deferred sentence for a background.

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Campbell began his offending against women when he was still a teenager and subjected them to physical, sexual and verbal abuse before murdering his final victim. Advocate depute Chris Jones told the court he had an "obsession with infidelity" and accused women of cheating on him.

Before murdering Jane Fitzpatrick, he had subjected her to an abusive course of behaviour between September 2020 and August 2021. He isolated her from friends and family, threatened her, monitored her movements and her social media accounts and damaged her mobile phones. He also struck her on head and body to her serious injury.

During messages between her and Campbell she had said she could not handle another beating and wrote: "Look at the marks all over me for telling the truth."

Before the murder she went to the Victoria Hospital, in Kirkcaldy, after being sick and unsteady of her feet following a head injury. Staff were told she hit her head after Campbell had to brake suddenly. Following the murder no evidence of emergency braking was found on the tyre's of his vehicle.

Campbell claimed that after she had left hospital they went to an industrial estate but she fell and banged her head. He said he had tried to stem the bleeding and they fell asleep in the car.

He said he first awoke when it was still dark and said she was okay at that point. He said he fell asleep again and later awoke and found her dead, with his door open. He told the court: "Jane was gone." He said he had tried to perform CPR on her. Campbell later drove off from the scene but was found by police, sitting in the driver's seat with his head down. He appeared to have blood on his trousers and around his fingernails. A tyre iron was recovered from the car which was used to inflict repeated blows to the head of the victim. She was also found to have sustained extensive fresh bruising.

One former partner of Campbell's told the court that she had called him "a stoner" because of his drug use. She said that during a confrontation he grabbed an iron and hit her forcefully in the face. During an assault on her in 2018 at a house in Glenrothes he also pushed a finger into a healing operation wound on her back and dragged her from a bed.

Another woman said she was subjected to assaults in Glenrothes between February 2003 and June 2004. She was thrown down a flight of stairs and kicked in the stomach when she was pregnant. Campbell also bit her on the head, tried to force drugs into her mouth and forced raw meat into her mouth.

Campbell, who has previous convictions for violence, was convicted of assaulting six women and raping three of them between 2004 between 2020 in Glenrothes, Kirkcaldy and Leven before committing the murder. He was placed on the sex offenders' register. He is due to be sentenced on July 20 at the High Court in Stirling.