‘Thoroughly evil’ killer of Sylvia Fleming back in jail

A ‘THOROUGHLY evil’ killer who murdered and dismembered his girlfriend more than 20 years ago has been handed a 12-month jail sentence for firearms offences.

Jailing Stephen Peter Scott, Judge Patrick Lynch KC told the 52-year-old convicted killer that, as a life-sentenced prisoner, “it was incumbent on you to make sure that you behaved yourself within the ambit of the law”.

He said that, although it was accepted by the PPS and police that he had the air pistol and ammunition not for any malicious or sinister purpose, the case still merited a jail sentence.

Standing in the dock of Craigavon Crown Court and wearing a light blue T-shirt, stockily-built Scott entered guilty pleas to two charges of breaching a prohibition on possessing firearms and ammunition on March 25 last year.

Prosecuting counsel Joseph Murphy told the court that, on April 5, 2000 Scott was jailed for life for the murder of Sylvia Fleming, with a minimum tariff of at least 19 years to be served in jail.

Giving a brief synopsis of that case, the lawyer told the court how 17-year-old Sylvia was pregnant when she was murdered and her body dismembered in Omagh in 1998 by fireman-turned-bodybuilder Scott.

When the killer was caged in 2000, the judge told him, “The manner in which her body was disposed of after her murder is surely the most gruesome.

“I am satisfied that you, Scott, not only deliberately killed this young girl but that you planned that killing and carried it out in circumstances so squalid that they would revolt any right-thinking person.”

Mr Murphy described how the firearms offences arose after a police search at a farm on the Garvaghy Road in Dromara, where Scott had been working as a labourer, uncovered an air pistol, firearm parts including a trigger assembly, shotgun stock, a small laser sight, airlift guns and ball bearings and a large quantity of shotgun cartridges.

“Police confirmed that the farm owner did not hold a firearms certificate but relied on friends and neighbours to help control vermin on the farm,” said Mr Murphy, adding that officers also uncovered books on how to build your own gun.

Scott, he told the court, “was cooperative throughout” and admitted during police interviews that he had obtained each of the items to control vermin on the farm but that none were powerful enough so he had obtained the books with a view to build his own firearm, not realising that he was putting himself in breach of his prison release licence.

“The main aggravating feature is that the defendant has a conviction for the ultimate crime of violence,” declared Mr Murphy, “and while the circumstances where he had the firearm and ammunition may not give rise to direct concerns, nevertheless this is an offender who has a conviction for a brutal murder.”

Defence counsel Patrick Taylor emphasised how it was common case “there was no malicious intent behind his possession of these items however given his conviction for the ultimate crime of violence the fact that he had these items is necessarily red-flagged”.

He told the court that, since Scott’s release, “he had rebuilt a life for himself” and had been working 12-hour days on the farm with the owner’s wife commenting that “they’d need three men to replace him”.