Killer who appeared on Songs of Praise now minister at Bishopbriggs church

A convicted killer, whose appearance on BBC television's '˜Songs of Praise' prompted outrage in 2009, has been ordained as a minister at Bishopbriggs.

Garry Brotherston was freed from prison in 2005 after fatally stabbing married man Billy Barclay in a street fight in Yoker in 1994.

Mr Brotherston told the programme, filmed in St Michael’s Church at Linlithgow, that he had found God in jail.

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He has since become involved with Bishopbriggs Free Church when moving to the the town back in 2013 and has become its minister in recent weeks.

The victim’s wife Christine has insisted she will never forgive the man who took her husband’s life.

However, the Free Church of Scotland defended its new minister saying: “Garry is a totally changed man.

“He is living proof of how the gospel of Jesus can transform someone into a new person.”