Paid murderer who shot Mark Webley in gangland hit outdoors Edinburgh pub jailed
Grant Hunter, 34, pleaded guilty to murdering Marc Webley, 38, who was shot outside the Anchor Inn in Granton, Edinburgh, just after 11.30pm on December 31, 2023
A hitman who confessed to the Hogmanay murder of a man outside a pub in a gangland shooting has been jailed for 26 years. Marc Webley, 38, was killed outside the Anchor Inn in Granton, Edinburgh, just after 11.30pm on New Year’s Eve, 2023.
Grant Hunter admitted to the High Court in Edinburgh last month that he murdered Mr Webley and attempted to kill another man. The court was told that Mr Webley, suspected by the police of involvement in organised crime, had been warned about threats to his life and was wearing a stab vest when he was shot.
Sentencing Hunter at the High Court in Glasgow on Wednesday, judge Lord Mulholland told him he had committed the murder for financial gain and for the “furtherance of serious organised crime”.
He added: “Your cowardly actions will haunt you for the rest of your life.”
During the November hearing, the court heard how Hunter, 34, arrived at the bustling pub in a nicked Hyundai SUV, donning a balaclava, and was approached by Mr Webley and his mate Stewart Pearson.
CCTV footage presented in court showed Mr Webley showing his mobile phone to Hunter, who then took off his mask and started shooting, injuring Mr Pearson.
Mr Webley, seen on CCTV wielding a knife, tried to flee but was shot in the back.
Despite the valiant efforts of pub staff and patrons to administer CPR, Mr Webley was declared dead at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh in the early hours of New Year’s Day, 2024.
In the court hearing last November, Hunter’s girlfriend Emma McVie, 27, confessed to attempting to pervert the course of justice by cleaning the inside of the stolen Hyundai after the shooting and laundering their clothes.
Co-defendant Gary Robertson, 22, also admitted to attempting to pervert the course of justice.
Hunter was arrested and held on remand after police identified him from CCTV footage the day after the murder, the court was told.
Prosecutor Graeme Jessop KC revealed that hours after the murder, on 1 January, Hunter “expressed frustration at having to wait to be paid”, and “suggested he expected to be paid a substantial amount of money for the shooting”, as well as cracking jokes about Mr Webley’s death.
At the November hearing, Judge Frank Mulholland declared “the streets of Edinburgh and Scotland are not war zones, this is not Chicago in the 1930s”.
He labelled the killer “callous and arrogant” and warned the “paid assassin” may never taste freedom again.
Lord Mulholland told him: “Grant Hunter, you pleaded guilty to a crime of the utmost gravity. You were a paid assassin.
“You assassinated a man in a public street in Edinburgh and were paid a substantial amount.
“Your callousness and arrogance was breath-taking, removing your mask so the victim would see who was taking his life, discharging four shots, and wounding another man who would have come to aid of the victim.”
