A “superned” responsible for a large proportion of a town’s crime statistics has been found with an array of weapons in Perth Prison.
A jury at the city’s sheriff court found Richard Mullen guilty of having makeshift weapons inside the jail three times within the space of six months.
Mullen became notorious for a teenage crime spree which made him by far the most prolific criminal in Blairgowrie.
He was then made the subject of a sheriff’s experiment when he was banned from staying with his own father, as he was considered to be a bad influence.
But the experiment was deemed a failure when Mullen – dubbed Superned – was jailed for trying to murder his own cousin with a golf club.
Weaponised cutlery
The jury found Mullen, 32, guilty of having a blade melted into cutlery on October 18 2020, a piece of sharpened Perspex on February 11 2021, and an open razor blade on April 10 2021.
When he was found guilty, Mullen told the court: “My life’s destroyed enough. Whatever sentence you give me isn’t going to make a difference.
“I already don’t see my kids. Throwing sentences of years and years on people doesn’t do any good. It just fills up the prison and makes it worse.
“My family have died all around me. I have been in prison a long time. I came in when I was young. I’ll be going out to hardly anybody. I don’t feel I’m getting a chance to sort my life out.”
Jailing Mullen for 18 months, Sheriff William Wood said: “I’ve listened but there are some difficulties with your position. Your first sentence was in 2008.
“You have had various sentences including for attempted murder. You are well experienced in the ways of prison. You need to observe the rules.
“The sharpened Perspex was clearly seen to drop from your clothing. That was a particularly vicious looking weapon that could cause significant damage to another individual.
“Despite all you say, you require to be deterred from making weapons and a further consecutive sentence is necessary. It is in your best interest to abide by prison rules.”
Attacked cousin with golf club
Mullen first came to public attention when a sheriff tried to save him from a criminal career by banning him from living with his own father because he was a negative influence.
Sheriff Lindsay Foulis banned him from staying with the crime-clan family after hearing that Mullen had made 50 court appearances in a single year.
His astonishing record of brushes with the law includes vandalising cars, shooting at a bus full of kids with a paintball gun, threatening to firebomb a policeman’s home and menacing a disabled woman and her elderly parents.
But the family ban had been eased when Mullen, then 21, and his brother Hugh, 29, smashed their 25-year-old cousin Daniel Crowe’s face with a golf club.
Lord Kinclaven said he considered both men so dangerous to the public that he also placed them on extended sentences after their release.
On 19 December 2007, Sheriff Foulis tried the radical approach of imposing an order banning Mullen from having contact with his father and brothers.
The court was told then that Mullen was single-handedly responsible for a significant percentage of all reported crime in Blairgowrie.
During one six week period before his 16th birthday Mullen was arrested and charged in connection with nearly 40 crimes.
The court was told that despite being just 15, Mullen was an alcoholic involved in a relationship with a mother-of-two who was twice his age.
Sheriff Foulis said: “This is a young man who has absolutely no boundaries whatsoever. There has been a total lack of parenting.”
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