(15 year old Kriss Donald pictured above and one of the memorial plaques that is placed in Kenmure Street where Kriss was abducted. Last year (2018) Kriss would have celebrated his 30th birthday. Photo credit: Evening Times)
Please note: The following posts in this series contain some disturbing and graphic details.
This case is very emotional for me and I've had it in the back of my mind to write about it for a while. I decided the other day that it was important for me to talk about Kriss because a lot of people still don't know about what happened to him which is a disgrace. I'm originally from Scotland and Glasgow is a special place for me and I also love the people there. I was living in England at the time Kriss was murdered in 2004 and due to lack of proper coverage of the case, I didn't find out about it till years later.
I decided to do some further research into the case as difficult as that was going to be and find out the real story of what happened to Kriss. It's been heartbreaking but I hope that his story reaches more people. We must not forget about him or any other victims of racially motivated murder. It was through my research into Kriss that I also discovered the Ross Parker case. Ross bled to death after being stabbed, beaten with a hammer and repeatedly kicked by a gang of British Pakistani youths in Peterborough, England.
The Stephen Lawrence case has always disturbed me and I was thinking of covering that case here but I feel that Stephen's case has been covered quite a lot and there are some insightful documentaries on youtube about the case. Stephen was a black British teenager from south east London who was stabbed by a group of white youths as he waited for a bus. His parents have spent years dedicating their lives to finding justice for their son.
Kriss Donald was born in Scotland on the 22nd of July 1988 to parents Angela and Alex. When he was a toddler, his parents spilt up and his dad moved to Portsmouth. Kriss remained in Scotland with his mother and older sister. His mother described him as a ''blue eyed angel''. As he grew up, his mother went on to have another son and two girls. Kriss was really close to his family and doted on his pet dog called Jack and his family nicknamed him ''man of the house''.
Kriss had never been in trouble and had no criminal record. His friends nicknamed him ''Krypto'' and he loved playing video games and was a huge supporter of Rangers Football Club but like most kids he wasn't a fan of attending school although he did work hard studying for his exams. It was on the morning of the 15th of March 2004 that he told his mother that he wasn't well enough to go to school and had a sore throat. Angela had her hands full that morning as her two younger girls had managed to get hold of a tin of green paint and covered themselves and the dog in it. Angela agreed to let him stay off of school and help her clean up the mess. In the afternoon, Kriss said that he was starting to feel a bit better and asked if he could go and collect a video game from his friend Jamie's house.
Angela agreed that he could go and collect the video game as long as he came straight back. She was concerned that someone from the school might spot him in the street and wonder why he wasn't at school that day. Kriss put his trainers on and walked out of the front door, unknown to himself and his mother the horror which lay ahead.
The night before, Imran Shahid (27) who was known as ''Baldy'' because of his distinctive dyed blonde, shaved hairstyle, was having a few drinks in the popular Victoria's nightclub in Glasgow. Imran was a bodybuilder who saw himself as a tough, gangland figure who had been released from prison just three months prior where he had spent a 30 month sentence for a road-rage attack on a 42 year old woman who he assaulted and tried to run over. He was the son of a businessman and was originally born in Huddersfield, England. He grew up in Pollokshields with his four brothers and three sisters. He was no stranger to prison and his offences were related to physical assault, drug and driving offences. When he was just 17 years old he attacked a 25 year old man with a baseball bat leaving him permanently brain damaged. He was also rumoured to have chopped off the finger of a man who had dated his sister. His reputation was important to him and he enjoyed picking on people who were younger and smaller than him. Despite his huge build and bad reputation, Imran was seen around Glasgow as a bit of a joke and this angered him.
As the Victoria nightclub staff were in the process of clearing away the glasses, the beer bottles and locking the doors at closing time, Imran recognised some of the young men from a rival gang walking out of the club. They were members of the McCulloch Street Team and they noticed Imran and began to laugh and joke at his expense. Outside the club there was an altercation with some of the young men and Imran which resulted in Imran being hit with a bottle. The men quickly got in a car as Imran tried to run after them but failed to catch up. As they drove away, they laughed and shouted at Imran in full view of everyone who attended the nightclub that night. Imran felt humiliated and raged with anger. People were supposed to fear him, he was supposed to be in charge. Instead of cooling off and letting things be, he stewed on it and got more and more angry as the hours went by. He wanted revenge and he wanted everyone in Glasgow to know that Imran Baldy Shahid was not to be messed with. He was going to do something to teach them all a lesson that nobody would forget and he would cement his name as the most feared gangland criminal in Glasgow.
Continued in part two...
Thank you reading, I hope you will join me for part two of this story x
It is always really shitty how selective the media is, because for some reporters it isn't about the stories it's about the rating. Kriss was only a year younger than me. :(
ReplyDeleteImran Shahid sounds like someone who was never really given the punishment that he deserved, and so he had the mentality that he could do anything he wanted. The fact that he liked to pick on people smaller than him proved what a piece of crap he was.
http://loveiszero.net
So sad : ( thank you for taking the time to read, I really enjoy reading your comments and appreciate them : ) x
DeleteIt is reprehensible that the council threatened Krypto's mum with arrest if she went ahead with a vigil for the 20th anniversary of her boy's murder. Shutting down debate by calling white working class racist for raising questions is doing nothing to tackle racism and this is where far right demagogues like Tommy Ten Names and his ilk are manipulating the white working classes into thinking they share their concerns while their own agenda is hidden within plain view, yet many people are listening to these slippery individuals after many years of being ignored by the establishment! I also find it disturbing that Baldy Shahid could be free within the next decade. Anyway, a well written piece about a case that has been largely overlooked over the past two decades.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much x
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