The forbidden romance between warring families in Edinburgh that ended in murder

It was 10.50pm on Saturday when a masked man carrying a sawn-off shotgun in both hands walked into the packed Marmion pub and opened fire.

Within moments, one man had suffered fatal wounds and a second lay seriously injured as the gunman fled into the darkness.

He was allegedly chased through the streets by a mob who chased him from the bar in Edinburgh. They brutally hit him in the face with the butt of his own gun.

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Jamie Bain was cornered just yards from his front door after launching the gun attack that shocked the city in April 2006.

Fueled by cocaine, Bain targeted relatives of his partner Dionne Hendry, a member of the infamous Hendry clan with a reputation for violence.

Their crossed relationship had sown the seeds for that night, and years later the volatile union was still a source of bad blood between the families.

Bain married Dionne in 2014 in a maximum security prison where he is serving a life sentence for murder, with a relative of Hendry describing it as a “marriage made in hell”.

In the months following the ceremony, Edinburgh was once again rocked by violence, with fears the prison wedding might have sparked fresh hostility.

Among the incidents, Dionne’s Range Rover was shot at with a gun and a fake bomb was left on her doorstep.

She and Bain had been childhood sweethearts at Liberton High School, and she later described him as a “bit of a poser, but a good guy to me”.

Dionne became pregnant with their first child at the age of 16 and the couple later had a son.

But by 2006, Bain, then 22, was part of the city’s underworld and involved in a feud with a cocaine dealer from Inch.

Police had warned Bain several weeks before the Marmion shooting that his life was in serious danger.

Bain himself claimed he was attacked with a machete, run over by a speeding car and almost stabbed in front of his two children.

Amid this unrest, Bain attacked Dionne on the morning of April 22, causing her to require hospital treatment for bruising to her cheekbone and nose. Police believed he feared reprisals from members of Dionne’s family.

Bain spent that evening doing cocaine at a flat party in Garvald Court before heading to the pub on Captain’s Road.

His friend Bernard Young provided him with the stolen shotgun, while another friend, Richard Cosgrove, accompanied him to the bar.

James Hendry, then 27, was hit first by Bain, with his face hidden behind a hockey mask, just seconds after being given a drink by a barmaid.

Then Bain pointed the gun at boxing champion Alex McKinnon, 32, Hendry’s brother-in-law, who died from his horrific injuries.

Bain spent a week fighting for his life in the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary after he was attacked outside and later underwent plastic surgery.

During his trial, his defense team, led by Donald Findlay QC, claimed Bain’s memory of the months leading up to the brutal beating had been erased.

Bain said from prison after he was convicted: “I honestly don’t remember anything. Alex was a good friend so I can’t understand why it would have happened. I cried when I was told he was dead. good guy, wish I could remember. At least it might give me some sort of explanation.

Bain called the “baby-faced killer sentenced to life in prison for a minimum of 22 years.”

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In 2007 he launched a legal challenge to become the first prisoner to have sex behind bars in Scotland. He planned to file legal papers to fight for Dionne’s right to “conjugal visitation.”

Seven years later the couple married in Shotts Prison.

A relative of Hendry said: “This is a marriage made in hell. How Dionne and now Dionne Bain can flaunt the death of Alex McKinnon by marrying his killer is beyond me. They are welcome together. “

In 2008, Dionne’s younger brother served nine months in prison for assaulting Bain’s mother, father and sister.

It was feared that the marriage had reopened the feud between the families and in September 2014 an explosion of violence rocked the city.

A family home in Moredun was sprayed with bullets. The terrifying attack came just days after an 18-year-old man suffered serious facial injuries after being punched in Gilmerton.

Dionne’s Range Rover was then hit by gunfire, leaving a large hole under the private license plate. A barrel of gasoline with shotgun shells tied to it was left on her doorstep.

A Liverpool FC scarf was also tied to the homemade device, along with the scribbled message: “Time’s running out, boy.”

That same night, a second bomb was left next to the Inch home of a Bain employee, while a house in Gilmerton was hit by gunfire.

Marmion shooting survivor James Hendry was jailed for 40 months for culpable homicide after killing former royal bodyguard Edward Dooley with a single punch in 2008.

Hendry, a Scottish light-heavyweight champion in 2001, died suddenly at his home in December aged 40.

In 2015 he was acquitted of the attempted kidnapping of one of the robbers in the Argyll Arcade robbery in Glasgow.