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| Peter Duncan screwdriver murder: Ewan Ireland jailed for life | Peter Duncan screwdriver murder: Ewan Ireland jailed for life |
| (32 minutes later) | |
| A teenager who stabbed a lawyer to death with a screwdriver as he was walking home from work has been jailed for a minimum of 15 years. | |
| Ewan Ireland was 17 when he attacked Peter Duncan, 52, at the entrance to a shopping centre in Newcastle in August. | Ewan Ireland was 17 when he attacked Peter Duncan, 52, at the entrance to a shopping centre in Newcastle in August. |
| A court heard the two brushed past each other when the teenager pulled out a screwdriver he had shoplifted and stabbed Mr Duncan in the heart. | A court heard the two brushed past each other when the teenager pulled out a screwdriver he had shoplifted and stabbed Mr Duncan in the heart. |
| Ireland admitted murder and was jailed for life with a minimum of 15 years. | Ireland admitted murder and was jailed for life with a minimum of 15 years. |
| The killer, who was able to be identified after he turned 18 in October, had 17 previous convictions for 31 offences between 2017 and 2019. | |
| At the time of the murder he was on bail for an offence of affray, was under investigation for a robbery and still subject to a 12-month conditional discharge for a battery offence the previous summer. | |
| In a victim impact statement read out at Newcastle Crown Court, Mr Duncan's widow Maria said her life "was ruined by a senseless and unprovoked act". | |
| "The person who did this had convictions. Nothing stopped him. He continued and he murdered my husband," she said. | |
| Mr Duncan came into contact with Ireland at the entrance to Eldon Square shopping centre when they were walking in opposite directions. | |
| The court heard the teenager was looking for another youth with whom he had previously argued about cigarettes. | |
| Mr Duncan, who was an in-house lawyer for an international maritime firm, raised his arm to let the youth past, but "the defendant took exception to that" and a struggle ensued, prosecutor Kevin Wardlaw said. | |
| After pushing the youngster off, Mr Duncan was stabbed once through the heart and collapsed a short distance away near a Greggs outlet. | |
| 'Needless and senseless' | |
| The court heard Mr Duncan's 15-year-old son was in the city centre that evening for a cinema trip and saw the cordoned off area without realising his father had been attacked. | |
| "I am angry he was out free, and cannot understand why he was not locked up," he said in a victim impact statement. | |
| "If he had been we would still have my dad to this day." | |
| During sentencing, Mr Justice Lavender said it was Mr Duncan's "bad luck to bump into you that day on his way home from work". | |
| "You started a fight, in the course of which you took out a screwdriver and stabbed him through the heart," he said. | |
| Ireland also admitted stealing screwdrivers and carrying an offensive weapon. | |
| Caroline Goodwin QC, defending, said Ireland "had spoken of his absolute remorse and devastation at the act he occasioned which was needless and senseless and took away from the family their father". |