A Scots bodybuilder who repeatedly strangled, kicked and thrashed his ex-partners with a belt has been granted a fresh bid for freedom.
Vicious Thomas O’Leary was handed a life-long restriction order in 2014 after being found guilty of violently abusing the two women.
The 39-year-old was ordered to serve a minimum of five years but has been kept behind bars at HMP Barlinnie by justice chiefs due to his risk of reoffending.
O’Leary, from Glasgow, took his fight for freedom to the Court of Session where he claimed that he was being treated differently from other prisoners.
But a judge threw his ‘unfair treatment’ claim out and revealed that the brute had previously been released and recalled to prison in December 2019 after authorities intervened.
The Parole Board for Scotland refused a fresh request for freedom by O’Leary in April last year due to ‘intelligence’ about him gathered by the police and the Scottish Prison Service.
They claimed it revolved around his alleged involvement in organised crime and claims about misuse of drugs in prison which could ‘damage the public interest’ if revealed.
But the brute’s legal team argued that all the ‘intelligence’ had not been disclosed to their client meaning he was unable to properly explain it to the panel.
The Judicial Review, carried out by Lord Craig Sandison, found a special advocate for O’Leary should have been appointed to assist in the matter.
He has ordered the parole board to hold a “differently-constituted Tribunal” to reconsider the application for release on licence within a reasonable time.
O’Leary was found to have attacked his two former partners at addresses in Glasgow between 2006 and 2012.
He half-strangled both women, threatened them with a knife, repeatedly punched and kicked both victims while also thrashing them with a belt.
Fuelled by alcohol and steroids, bodybuilder O’Leary also stubbed out a lit cigarette on the leg of one of the women.
The family of a third woman, Emma Browne, 22, claimed the brute hounded her from behind bars before she took her own life in 2009, but he was never convicted of crimes against her.
O’Leary was previously jailed for four-and-a-half years in 2004 for serious assaults which left his victims scarred for life.
He was released halfway through the sentence and was still on licence when he was again jailed for attacking two other women.
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