The last six months

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5.18   On 6 March he informed a club official that there had been "a bit of a hold up" about obtaining the signature. He told the official, Mr J A C Moffat, that he had been away from shooting for quite a while and wanted to get back into it, now that he had more time on his hands. On that day Thomas Hamilton also used stickers and put the sheets in a book after he had used them. Mr N K Bell, a probationary member, noticed that Thomas Hamilton fired off a lot more rounds than he had ever seen anyone else doing. He felt very uncomfortable about him. Thomas Hamilton had insisted Mr Bell should try his Browning (not the murder weapon) although the latter was quite happy with his .22 pistol. He appeared to be angry when Mr Bell queried whether his club was using the gymnasium at Dunblane High School on Thursdays. Mr Bell mentioned to his wife that he was concerned about Thomas Hamilton - more in relation to his being involved with children than in regard to firearms. His wife told him that there was no point in doing anything about it because the Regional Council would never have allowed him to run a club unless it was appropriate.

5.19   Mr Mercer, to whom I have referred in para 5.13, gave evidence that Thomas Hamilton hired the minibus from Menstrie Community Centre about 6 or 7 times at the end of 1995 and beginning of 1996. On one occasion he noticed that Thomas Hamilton had left a tin of gun oil on the minibus. When he spoke to him about it Thomas Hamilton said he needed it to oil some hinges on the bus. Thomas Hamilton also asked him if he had ever had guns or fired guns. He brought gun magazines for him to look at. On one occasion he brought an unloaded handgun with him when he came to pick up the minibus. He said that he had thousands of rounds of ammunition in his house. Mr Mercer did not tell anybody about being shown the gun. He didn't think anything of it. Thomas Hamilton assured him at the time that he had a firearm certificate.

5.20   Mr Boal noticed that while he was working for Thomas Hamilton the camera equipment disappeared, and guns took over the conversation. At Christmas 1995 Thomas Hamilton said that he was heavily involved in them. Three or four weeks before he last saw him he kept talking about bullets and what certain bullets could do. Looking back on the conversation Mr Boal thought it quite strange that he talked about the "spray" of a bullet which disintegrated rather than passed through its target. He was also testing to see which bullets were best to prevent jamming of his handgun. He had experimented with shooting at books when he would see the "spray" of the bullets going through the thickness. He said that he liked the videos of Alien and Terminator because of the guns. On one occasion Mr Boal discovered from speaking to the boys that Thomas Hamilton had told them that he had shot a moose and had showed them an ammunition catalogue. When Mr Boal said to him that he should not be talking to children about guns Thomas Hamilton replied to this effect: "It's O.K., kids play soldiers all the time".

5.21   Mr J O Gillespie was a reasonably frequent visitor to the house of Thomas Hamilton until about 4-5 weeks before 13 March. On that last occasion Thomas Hamilton had a 9 mm pistol in his hand. He asked Mr Gillespie whether, if he had any kids, he would allow them to attend his club. When Mr Gillespie replied in the negative, Thomas Hamilton pointed the pistol at him and pulled the trigger. Nothing was in the chamber. Mr Gillespie got a fright, called him a "stupid bastard", threw coffee at him and walked out smartly. He would not have allowed his children to attend as Thomas Hamilton was "too military". Mr Gillespie did not report this incident to the police as he knew that Thomas Hamilton would have denied it. It gave him the idea that he was dangerous. He had too many guns in the house for anyone to have.

5.22   On 1 March Isobel Martin, the Head Teacher at a primary school, who had become aware of Thomas Hamilton's setting up of the Bishopbriggs Boys Club, received a complaint from the parent of one of her pupils about Thomas Hamilton's behaviour. According to this complaint he appeared to be taking an exceptional interest in her son and one of his friends. He had offered to pick up the boy to take him to a different club in Stirling. The parent had been informed that Thomas Hamilton had shown the boys photographs of wild animals, and had shown them a gun which he kept in the minibus which he used to transport the boys. He had been increasing the amount of time between picking up the boy and collecting the other children. He also asked her son if he liked the film Alien and offered to give him a videotape of it to take home to watch. He also said to her son that he went shooting and offered to take him with him. Her son was 11 years of age. The Head Teacher noted this complaint. After obtaining some advice from the local education officer she addressed a letter to the Social Work Department in Bishopbriggs. Having received no response to that letter she made a telephone call to that department on 12 March to check that her letter had been received. Later that day the department contacted her and said that they would send a social worker to visit the parent who had been wondering why no one from the department had been in touch with her. The events of 13 March intervened before any further steps could be taken.

Thomas Hamilton's finances

5.23   It is clear that during the last 6 months of his life Thomas Hamilton was in serious financial difficulties. In previous years he had consumed any free capital which became available to him. In 1983 he had received a payment from the insurers of his boat which was destroyed; and in 1985 he received a substantial payment from the sale of his shop business. In each case the payments were used to meet existing overdrafts and his current expenditure. It appears that he regularly made a loss in the running of his boys clubs and camps. At one stage he had a substantial number of cameras in his house but his trading in them led to him losing his right to claim unemployment benefit in November 1993. By the end of 1995 there had been a considerable reduction in his camera business. He also suffered a setback when the Amateur Photographer refused to carry his advertisements.

5.24   An examination of his finances as at the date of his death was carried out by Chief Inspector Hughes. This showed that he had made heavy use of accounts with Debenhams and Barclaycard in order to provide finance for his everyday living. At his death he owed £737.74 to Debenhams and on 8 March he had reached the limit of £1,500 on his Barclaycard account. He had no capital in a bank or building society. He had a total overdraft of £3,511. He was in receipt of housing benefit for 7 Kent Road. He owed £2,350 in respect of a loan which had been made to him in 1994 to provide finance for his camera business. His application for a further loan in 1996 had been refused. He did not have much income from cameras. He was in arrears with payment of the council tax.

Thomas Hamilton's mood

5.25   To a number of those who gave evidence he appeared to be his normal self. His natural mother met him on 11 March; and on 12 March he came round for four hours in the afternoon, had a bath and something to eat and "blethered" with her. However, other witnesses were aware of a change in his mood. Mr R P C Allston, a photographer, who only knew Thomas Hamilton from telephone conversations with him, described him as being very subdued and depressed at the end of February. Thomas Hamilton told him that he was shooting more and more as this took his mind off his problems. On 6 March he hardly spoke. The last thing he said was "I am going back to my guns", and then he rang off. Mr D Macdonald spoke to him on the evening of 12 March. He said that he was lonely and it was not good to be alone. Mr Macdonald said that the telephone conversation "went flat". Over the past 6 months Thomas Hamilton had been less enthusiastic about his camera business. Mr A J Togneri said that on 11 March Thomas Hamilton sounded very unhappy and subdued. He said that the numbers at his clubs were down. Mr G E Macdonald said that Thomas Hamilton did not answer at his door when he called on 10 March but he knew that he definitely was in. Some 5 or 6 weeks earlier Thomas Hamilton had telephoned him and seemed "awful down". He said that he had hassle in Dunblane and the club there was not doing very well. When he ran him home on 6 March he had a lot of letters with him. He had a "slight grudge" against the people who were slandering him.

5.26   On 26 January 1996 Thomas Hamilton wrote a letter to Councillor Ball. Although it was headed "Private and Confidential" he sent copies to a number of Head Teachers of primary schools in the area, in particular St Francis Primary School, Falkirk, Bannockburn Primary School and Dunblane Primary School; and to the Scout Association and Mr David Vass. He complained in the letter that teachers at Bannockburn Primary School were informing pupils and parents that he was a pervert. As a result all of the 26 pupils who were members of his Bannockburn Boys Club had left immediately and local gossip followed. He complained that the Education Department had done nothing to correct the situation which was widespread. He added: "At Dunblane Primary School where teachers have contaminated all of the older boys with this poison even former cleaners and dinner ladies have been told by the teachers at school that I am a pervert. There have been reports at many schools of our boys being rounded up by the staff and even warnings given to entire schools by Head Teachers during assembly". He said that this had been extremely damaging not only to his clubs but to his own public standing and had resulted in a complete loss of his ability to earn a living. He said: "I have no criminal record nor have I ever been accused of sexual child abuse by any child and I am not a pervert". He had called at Bannockburn Primary School and Dunblane Primary School and expressed a similar complaint to the Head Teachers about members of staff discouraging boys from attending his clubs and suggesting that he was a pervert. Thomas Hamilton went on to say in his letter that the matter had originated in 1983 when an official of the Education Department had warned Head Teachers that he was a pervert, was currently interfering with boys and had been put out of the Scouts for this and had a long criminal record for this type of offence. He said that this official and his reported source in the Scouts were fully discredited and the clubs' use of schools was returned. However, the information which the official had passed to Head Teachers had never been corrected "and has over the years reached epidemic proportions". He blamed the malicious work of the Scout official in his attempt to undermine "what he considers to be a rival group". He claimed that all this serious damage had resulted from the maladministration of Central Regional Council and its failure to correct the false information. In evidence Councillor Ball commented that Thomas Hamilton never seemed to be able to put the past behind him. Judged by his letter "his mental state" was slightly deteriorating. He had last met Thomas Hamilton in the summer of 1995 when he "sounded fine". But this letter was a bit worrying. Mr Vass telephoned Councillor Ball in order to make it clear that at no time had he suggested that anything improper had taken place between Thomas Hamilton and Scouts.

5.27   On 11 February 1996 Thomas Hamilton wrote to Mr Michael Forsyth MP complaining of many serious problems which he had experienced over the years of which the root cause was "malicious gossip" circulated by certain Scout officials. He referred to the problem in 1983 with the Central Regional Council which, he said, resulted from Scout officials approaching a councillor. He referred once more to the disruption to his camps in 1988 and 1991. Although he understood that senior officers of Central Scotland Police were satisfied that everything was all right, he had been unable to recover from the very serious damage caused by the police which had compounded the very difficult situation which already existed. The long term effect "has been a death blow to my already difficult work in providing sports and leisure activities to local children as well as my public standing in the community".

5.28   On 6 March Thomas Hamilton made a telephone call to the headquarters of the Scout Association in Scotland and asked who was its patron. He also enquired about the names of other high ranking officials but was told that these were not to hand. In the conversation Thomas Hamilton went on to say he wanted the Queen, who was the patron, or other high ranking officials to know about the maladministration of the Scouts. It was being put about that he was a pervert. A certain official was going around the schools telling everybody that he was a pervert when he was only an enthusiastic and friendly leader. He had tried to start up boys clubs on numerous occasions but because the official had gone into the schools it was very difficult for him. As a result of the rumours he could no longer walk down the street, his reputation had been ruined and he was close to bankruptcy. This telephone conversation was followed by a letter from Thomas Hamilton to the Queen dated 7 March in which he rehearsed the complaints which he had repeatedly made in correspondence. His letter closed with the words: "I turn to you as a last resort and am appealing for some kind of intervention in the hope that I may be able to regain my self-esteem in society". Copies of this letter were sent by him to Councillor Ball, Mr Forsyth, the Scout Association and certain senior Scout officials and the Head Teachers of Bannockburn and Dunblane Primary Schools.