A man who claimed he "genuinely believed" he was Jesus has been moved to a secure mental health facility ahead of his sentencing for plotting to kill a prosecutor. Martin Ready, 42, was found guilty of attempting to conspire to murder Darren Harty, 37, in a plot apparently inspired by a conspiracy theory about alleged corruption at a pub in Scotland. His scheme to murder Mr Harty involved using a site on the dark web to find a hitman to shoot him, setting up cryptocurrency accounts, and paying £5,071.24 in Bitcoin.
The planning was said to have occurred between 29 May 2021 and 15 September 2022. Ready had denied the charge and lodged a special defence of lacking criminal responsibility during a trial at the High Court in Glasgow. But in August he was found guilty after giving evidence claiming he planned the murder to expose organised crime in Coatbridge, North Lanarkshire. During a hearing in December, defence lawyer Brian McConnachie KC told judge Lady Hood how reports from two psychiatrists concluded his client was suffering from delusional disorder.
Mr McConnachie repeated an earlier call that the best way to deal with Ready - who remained on remand at HMP Barlinnie in the meantime - was for the court to impose an interim compulsion order. Such an order would compel his client to be kept in a hospital where mental health professionals would assess his disorder, his needs, and the threat he poses to public safety. Lady Hood agreed, and at the High Court in Kilmarnock on Tuesday imposed an interim compulsion order remanding Ready to the Rowanbank Clinic in Glasgow ahead of any future sentencing.
The order had been delayed for some weeks due to a lack of beds at the medium secure facility. A review hearing will take place at the High Court in Glasgow on 5 May, with the judge continuing the consideration of non-harassment orders until that date. 'I genuinely believed I was Jesus'. The trial heard Ready and Mr Harty knew each other from a pub owned by the victim's family in Coatbridge. Ready claimed he believed he was "Jesus" in autumn 2021, and suffered a relapse in January 2022 when he believed he was "evil Jesus".
He said: "At the time, I genuinely believed I was Jesus and that the actions I took were to expose the criminality I had been subjected to.". The court heard Ready's father believed he was "paranoid" and he had spent time in a psychiatric ward in Wishaw after alleging an abduction attempt was carried out in 2020, by a family named in court. Giving evidence, the accused said he had sold drugs for the family between 2007 and 2010 while studying law.
Ready told the court he believed he had been "jagged with a canine GPS tracker" by his own brother, but an X-ray of his right arm showed nothing. He also told the court he had seen bedbugs "streaming down the walls" of his flat after supposedly being posted through a letterbox. Read more from Sky News:Six members of paedophile gang to appeal against convictionBargain Hunt expert 'assaulted wife over 10-year period'.
Follow our channel and never miss an update. Pub conspiracy theory-inspired plot. Ready claimed his motivation for plotting the murder on the dark web - which was exposed by a documentary maker - was to reveal "money washing" which he alleged was happening at the pub. His trial heard the website he used was later found to be a front for a scam. Ready said he chose Mr Harty as a victim because of his connection with the pub, rather than due to personal issues, and believed his death "would turn on his links to organised crime".
Mr Harty gave evidence on the first day of the trial and said money laundering was "absolutely not" happening at the pub, where he worked around a decade ago while at university. He said he remembered Ready as he was teetotal and would order coffee, which was "irritating" due to how busy the pub was. Be the first to get Breaking News. Install the Sky News app for free. Ready claimed being remanded at HMP Barlinnie after the murder plot was exposed in September 2022 improved his mental health as it got him out of Coatbridge.
