SENTENCING STATEMENTS
A judge may decide to publish a statement after passing sentence on an offender in cases where there is particular public interest; where a case has legal significance; or where providing the reasons for the decision might assist public understanding.
Please note that statements may include graphic details of offences when it is necessary to fully explain the reasons behind a sentencing decision.
Follow us if you wish to receive alerts as soon as statements are published.
Once charges are spent, any statement in relation to them is removed and cannot be provided or acknowledged. Statements published before the launch of the website may be available on request. Please email judicialcomms@scotcourts.gov.uk.
The independence of the judiciary is essential to safeguard people’s rights under law - enabling judges to make decisions impartially based solely on evidence and law, without interference or influence from the government or politicians.
When deciding a sentence, a judge must deal with the offence that the offender has been convicted of, taking into account the unique circumstances of each particular case. The judge will carefully consider the facts that are presented to the Court by both the prosecution and by the defence.
For more information about how judges decide sentences; what sentences are available; and matters such as temporary release, see the independent Scottish Sentencing Council website.
Read more about victims of crime and sentencing.
HMA v Alexander Campbell Brennan
Sep 21, 2026
Upon sentencing, Lord Scott made the following remarks:
“You have been found guilty of the murder of Brodie MacGregor by repeatedly punching and slapping her on the head and body, repeatedly striking her on the face, head and body with glass bottles, broken glass bottles and a microwave plate, and inflicting blunt force trauma and injuries to her face, head and body.
The charge was aggravated in terms of section 1 of the Abusive Behaviour and Sexual Harm (Scotland) Act 2016 due to involving abuse of your partner or ex-partner. That means that the jury was satisfied that you intended to cause Brodie MacGregor to suffer physical or psychological harm or were reckless as to whether your conduct would have that result. It has been made clear by the Appeal Court that this is to be treated as a serious aggravation to any charge.
When you murdered her, Brodie MacGregor was 23 years old. There are no Victim Impact Statements, although I have been informed about surviving siblings and a young child now left without a mother.
Dr Wood described some trivial injuries to your face as well as injuries to your hands. Whether some of these were caused due to the ferocity of your attack on Brodie MacGregor is unclear. On the evidence, even allowing for your injuries, there was no provocation for what you did. Your best recollection seems to be some sort of argument. You brutally murdered a woman who offered no serious physical threat to you.
The forensic pathologist, Dr McAdam, described the severity of the injuries you inflicted which were akin to high velocity impacts or falling from a building. The evidence about Brodie MacGregor’s blood in the living room of the flat, including cast-off blood on the ceiling, reinforces the extent of the brutality of what you did to her. Even as she lay dying for around an hour, whether conscious or unconscious, you took no steps to seek medical assistance to offer even a slight chance that she would be saved.
Very quickly, you resumed your focus on your own selfish priorities, demonstrating in everything you did that you were completely indifferent as to whether Brodie MacGregor lived or died. Whether or not you intended to kill Brodie MacGregor, you displayed a wicked disregard for the consequences of your brutal attack on a defenceless woman.
Alexander Brennan, you are 54 years old and, at the time of the murder, were 52. You have several previous convictions, including for violence, and have served several prison sentences. Indeed, at the time of the murder, you were subject to a deferred sentence from Glasgow Sheriff Court for a charge of assault which resulted in January 2025 in a sentence of 6 months imprisonment. By that stage, of course, you were already remanded in custody for the murder. Mr McConnachie is right to say that the present offence is of an entirely different scale to anything in your convictions.
Understandably, Mr McConnachie was simply unable to find anything to say on your behalf today in view of the jury’s verdict.
The sentence for murder is prescribed by law and is a life sentence. I require, however, to specify a punishment part which is the period you must serve before you can be considered for parole. Having regard to the brutal nature of this murder, I have decided that the appropriate punishment part is 22 years. That would have been a period of 20 years but for the aggravation of involving domestic abuse.
You should understand that this is not a sentence of 22 years imprisonment. It is a life sentence. 22 years represents the minimum time you will have to serve before you can even be considered for parole. Given the date when the sentence will commence, that period of 22 years will keep you in prison to the age of 74 at least. Whether you are released then or ever will be a matter for the Parole Board to determine after that 22 year period has elapsed, based on the risk you are assessed to pose at that time.
The sentence will date from 30 November 2024 to take account only of the period spent exclusively on remand for this case.”
21 September 2026