'Cold' Skye shooter dubbed Robocop by bouncer pals as ex-colleague shares fears he could snap

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Crazed killer Finlay MacDonald was dubbed Robocop while working as a nightclub bouncer. A former friend and colleague of the disturbed marine engineer said he had been known as an awkward and introverted character who struggled with interpersonal relationships. He also developed nasty right wing views and racism that was reflected in his communications in social media.

While working at the famous Garage nightclub in Glasgow as a student, MacDonald, now 41, became known as "Furious Finlay" due to his deep and moody persona. The bodybuilder was drawn to violent movies and some friends joked that he was the type who “might flip at any moment”.

One friend said: "If I had to pick out one bouncer out of all the guys I worked with who’d snap and go on the rampage it would be Finlay MacDonald. There’s been a good bit of chat about that during the trial about it and everyone agrees on that point. We all knew there was something a bit odd about him and he didn’t seem to have any real empathy.

"He was awkward with people and just wasn’t tuned into the world like most people. He was a clever guy but he would be slow on the uptake with jokes and take things literally. One of the guys mocked up an image of him as Robocop, not because he was into ultra-violence but because he was like a robot. He was cold and robotic and just a bit odd."

The friend said the nickname that actually stuck over the years was "Big Furious Finlay" because he was always serious. He said: "The nickname got shortened sometimes to "Big Furious" and he answered to that. He didn’t object, he just accepted it and didn’t bother getting into any banter about it, which was his way."

MacDonald worked at The Garage between 2003 and 2007, while he studied at the Glasgow Nautical College. After graduating he got a job as an engineer with shipping giant Maersk Line and was promoted to the post of First Mate. The pal said: "Finlay had a flat in the west end that I believe his gran bought for him, so the job was just paying for his living expenses while he was studying.

"He had a very distinct island accent and that set him apart from the outset but he was always a bit different and strange. He was friends with a few of the bouncers, as it was quite a close-knit bunch, but he was different to the rest of us." The friend said that when he heard of the rampage on Skye, his first thought was for MacDonald.

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He said: "I hadn’t heard from him for a bit, so I was thinking, ‘I hope Big Furious is ok’. And then I heard that it was him who was in the frame for it. I was gobsmacked but after a bit it didn’t seem that hard to believe, as he seemed like the kind who was set apart from everyone else.

"It’s that lack of empathy that might explain how he has the capacity to do something violent. What he did was horrific though and hard to square that anyone would do that without some kind of breakdown. I do find it a bit disturbing that he seems to have been given a gun licence, as he’d have been the last person I’d have allowed to have guns."

The pal said there were many examples of strange behaviour and obsessions - but MacDonald was never excessively violent during his time at The Garage, on Sauchiehall Street. MacDonald also became obsessed with bodybuilding, wrestling and strongman competitions.

The friend said: "He was a bit geeky in the way he was into that stuff. He had an interest in stuff that kids would be into." The friend of MacDonald also told how he believed the killer may have had a breakdown of some kind during his time at sea. He said: "He turned into a real nasty racist.

"I believe he was working with some Filipino sailors and he took a dislike to them and started talking unguardedly, in horrible terms, about people from certain countries. I wondered if he maybe cracked under the pressure of being at sea, with people under his command, as he had quite a lot of responsibility as First Mate."

The friend said he had arranged to meet MacDonald in Glasgow in 2009 for a catch-up, where he realised MacDonald was expressing extreme views on race and his interest in right wing politics. He said: "At one point he started talking about Austrian right wing politician Jorg Haider, who was very anti-immigration annd anti-Islam.

"He said he hoped Haider would sort the country out and then started banging on about how Europe was being taken over by Muslims. I was taken aback because I was expecting to be gearing some tales of his time at sea and the places he’d visited. But instead I had this freaky right wing nonsense spilling out and he was oblivious to what I was thinking of him.

"I immediately thought I needed to get out of the conversation and I knew there and then that I wouldn’t be meeting Finlay MacDonald again in a hurry." The pal said he reflected on that meeting in recent weeks and believes MacDonald’s subsequent violent rampage has parallels with Norwegian extremist Anders Breivik, who killed 77 people in 2011.

He said: "He wasn’t right and it’s fair to say now that he would have some parallels with Anders Breivik." In 2010, MacDonald reported that, while at sea, he took ill and required emergency surgery on his appendix. Instead of being grateful for the help he got at a Caribbean island, he posted on social media: "Worst of all I had to get this operation done on a tiny Caribbean island full of filthy savages in a third world hospital."

On another occasion he told a soldier friend that he hoped, when he went on tour to Afghanistan that he’d kill a bunch of "ragheads" - a viciously racist term. Colleagues would wonder if MacDonald might ever explode into violence. The friend said: "We joked about the Robocop thing but the reality is that he never went over the score if he was ejecting someone.

"He was a big guy - around six foot two and 14 or 15 stone, and he knew how to look after himself. But he went about his job well,never afraid to get stuck in where necessary but not in an excessive way. That didn’t stop us wondering if he was on the edge and if he might snap."

The pal said he noted a post on Instagram by MacDonald in January 2021, where the killer mocked up a pic of actor Sylvester Stallone from the famous Rambo movies. The pic showed a brooding Rambo - known for mega-violence - being restrained by an official who was asking for a Covid mask.

The pal said: "Looking at the post now it does make me wonder if he was on the edge. The last thing Finlay MacDonald needed to focus on was Rambo, given the movie was all about a guy going on the rampage with guns, knives and other weapons."

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