The killer of Angus jockey Jan Wilson is to be sentenced on the first anniversary of the tragic teenager’s funeral.
Following an earlier delay in the sentencing of labourer Peter Brown, it has now emerged that September 23 has been scheduled for his return to court to learn the punishment he will receive for the manslaughter of 19-year-old Jan from Greenhead, near Forfar, and Irishman Jamie Kyne (18).
The jockeys lost their lives in a fire started by Brown at a block of flats in Norton, North Yorkshire, last September in a drunken revenge attack after the father-of-one was refused entry to a party.
Brown (37) faced a double murder charge but was convicted of the pair’s manslaughter following a 19-day trial at Leeds Crown Court.
The sentencing date will see Jan’s parent’s Drew and Margaret return to court a year to the day since hundreds of mourners packed Forfar’s Lowson Memorial Church to say an emotional farewell to “Wee Wilson”.
On Thursday Jan’s memory was honoured at Kirriemuir golf course, when junior players from the Kirrie and Forfar clubs played the first leg of a Jan Wilson Memorial Derby.
“Jan had lessons at both clubs and was a member at Forfar for a number of years,” said Mrs Wilson, who met the golfers at the end of the match, narrowly won by the Kirrie group.
The Jockey Jan fund set up in the wake of the tragedy has also received a recent boost through a donation from Angus Suffolk sheep enthusiast George Watt, after an open evening at his home near Forfar.
Among organisations the fund has recently supported are Forfar Boys Club and the junior Forfar golfers.
Friends of Jan are also being invited to a Rescobie Church service on Sunday, September 5 the anniversary of her death which will see the dedication of a memorial bench.
The bench will look across Rescobie Loch to the family farm at Greenhead and follows the placing of another bench on the High Moor at Middleham in North Yorkshire, near her racing base, earlier this year.
Mrs Wilson said, “These will be places where friends of Jan will be able to go and remember her or maybe lay flowers in the two areas she loved.”