A man who claimed to be a vigilante and had identified as “evil Jesus” has been found guilty of plotting to kill a prosecutor.
Martin Ready, 41, was convicted of attempting to conspire to murder Darren Harty, 37, by setting up cryptocurrency accounts, using a site on the dark web, paying £5,071.24 in Bitcoin, and instructing Mr Harty be shot and where he could be found.
The plotting was said to have occurred between 29 May 2021 and 15 September 2022.
Ready denied the charge and lodged a special defence of lacking criminal responsibility during a trial at the High Court in Glasgow.
He was found guilty after giving evidence claiming he planned the murder to expose organised crime in Coatbridge.
The court heard the men knew each other from a pub owned by Mr Harty’s family in the North Lanarkshire town.
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.”
Ready said he knew “murder is illegal”, adding: “At the time I was genuinely delusional and believed this was the right course of action.”
Ready said he chose Mr Harty because of his connection with the pub, rather than due to personal issues.
He said: “I felt that if Darren had been killed it would turn on his links to organised crime.”
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 by a named family in 2020.
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.
Ready also told the court he had seen bedbugs “streaming down the walls” of his flat after supposedly being posted through a letterbox.
He claimed his motivation by 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.
Read more from Sky News:
Boy, 16, ‘decapitated’ by shark while fishing
Elderly couple injured after car falls into sinkhole
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.
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.
The case was adjourned for background reports, with Ready returned to custody ahead of his sentencing at the High Court in Edinburgh on 24 October.
