In Glasgow’s High Court, a man stands trial for an alleged murder plot, claiming he believed he was “evil Jesus” sent to expose organized crime. The accused, Martin Ready, 41, denies conspiring to kill lawyer Darren Harty, 37, between May 2021 and September 2022.
Ready, who met Harty at a pub in Coatbridge, North Lanarkshire, owned by Harty’s family, allegedly paid over £5,000 in cryptocurrency through the dark web to arrange Harty’s murder. According to the prosecution, Ready believed eliminating Harty would expose his ties to organized crime.
During the trial, the court heard that Ready had been admitted to a psychiatric ward in Wishaw, North Lanarkshire, in 2020 after an alleged abduction attempt. It was during this time that Ready claimed that he began to suffer from delusions. By January 2022, he believed he was “evil Jesus.”
Ready has entered a plea of not guilty because of insanity, arguing that his delusions drove his actions. “I genuinely believed I was Jesus,” Ready testified, “and that what I did was to expose the criminality around me.”
The court also heard Ready’s claims that the pub was a front for money laundering and that his brother had injected a GPS tracker into his arm, though an X-ray revealed no such device.
Messages presented in court showed Ready’s deteriorating mental state. In October 2021, he messaged a friend claiming he was experiencing “stigmata,” on Christmas Day of that year, he sent a message reading, “Merry Christmas from Jesus – the actual Jesus.”
Another message declared, “I am evil Jesus, and you are Mary Magdalene.”
Prosecutor Erin Campbell challenged Ready’s narrative, suggesting his belief in being Jesus was nothing more than a “running joke.”
She pointed to his attempts to cover his tracks, arrange a third party for the killing, and consider alibis as evidence that he knew his actions were illegal.
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