What happened
On 27 December 2020 Alice McLaughlin, 50, a district nurse, was on a home visit in Glasgow’s Newlands. She was sitting in her car outside a patient’s flat, in a block where a resident, Des O’Connor, 54, also lived.
The prosecutor told Glasgow Sheriff Court that O’Connor was at her car behaving erratically, shouting and demanding entrance, holding a glass bottle. He struck the driver’s window with it. McLaughlin meant to drive away, but feared what would happen next and said she would let him into the building, thinking that would calm him. Before she could get out of the car, O’Connor opened the door, took hold of her arm and pulled her out. He got in and tried to drive off.
A resident pulled him out and restrained him while a 999 call was made. McLaughlin was taken from the scene, and O’Connor was held until police arrived.
The outcome
O’Connor pleaded guilty at Glasgow Sheriff Court to assault and robbery, and to behaving in a threatening or abusive manner. He was jailed for 27 months in April 2021. Sheriff Martin Jones QC described it as an extremely serious robbery of a woman going about her business visiting patients. The defence said O’Connor had no recollection of events because of drugs.
What went wrong
The nurse’s own reasoning is the part to read twice. She had decided to drive away. Then she changed her mind and decided to open the building, because she thought that would settle him. That second decision was made in a car with a smashed window, with a man standing outside it, and it moved her out of a locked box and into the open.
The block is the other part. A district nurse arriving for a visit parks where she can, walks to a communal door, and is exposed between the two. No report describes a risk assessment for the visit, a parking plan or a lone worker alarm, and the person who stopped the attack was a resident who happened to be there.
What it teaches
Inside a locked car a nurse still has options. She can drive, reverse, sound the horn or call. On the pavement she has none, and her car is being taken at the same time. The moment to leave is when the bottle hits the window, not the moment after it.
For the employer, the question is where the car is parked and what the worker does before unlocking the door. A visit plan that ends at “attend flat 2/1” has left the most exposed part of the journey undescribed.
Our lone working training covers the vehicle-to-door transition for community staff.
Questions for the room
- A man is shouting at your window with a bottle in his hand. What do you do in the next thirty seconds, and when exactly do you drive?
- What in your arrival routine puts you outside the car before you have looked around?
- Does your employer’s written expectation cover a car-jacking attempt, and could you find it today?
- If you drive away from a visit, who tells the patient, and what happens to them?
Evidence and limits
Confidence: confirmed. STV News and Glasgow Live both reported the hearing on 21 April 2021 and were read in full; the narrative follows the agreed facts spoken in open court. Neither report records a risk assessment by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde for the visit, and no source says what the nurse was expected to do about her car, so this page does not assert that her employer failed. The description of the car-to-close exposure is ours, drawn from the facts of the visit.
Sources
- STV News, April 2021 · https://news.stv.tv/west-central/man-dragged-district-nurse-from-car-and-tried-to-drive-off
- Glasgow Live, April 2021 · https://www.glasgowlive.co.uk/news/glasgow-news/thug-who-dragged-nurse-out-20436114
Reviewed 20 October 2026.