Four men have been jailed for murdering a man who had dropped his girlfriend off outside her house in East Renfrewshire.

Tony Ferns, 33, suffered a stab wound to the heart while sitting in his car in Thornliebank in April 2019.

He managed to drive a short distance to the house he shared with his mother after the attack, but later died as a result of his injuries.

Craig Colquhoun, 39, Raymond Platt, 56, Joseph McCulloch, 50, and Robert Park, 69, were found unanimously guilty of his murder following a trial at the High Court in Glasgow.

All four had denied being involved in the murder.

Mr Ferns blamed Robert Park, 69, who planned the murder, for injuring his disabled brother in a road accident.

Park was jailed for 20 years, while Platt, who stabbed Mr Ferns, was jailed for 23 years.

Getaway driver Colquhoun was jailed for 20 years and McCulloch received an 18-year sentence.

The four were sentenced less than an hour after being found guilty of the murder.

The trial heard Park, a window cleaner, plotted with convicted killer Platt, to murder Mr Ferns, who worked as a tiler.

Colquhoun acted as the getaway driver in a Motability car, which belonged to the mother of his then-partner.

Meanwhile, McCulloch was said to have been helping track Mr Ferns’ movements before the killing.

Mr Ferns’ partner, Angela McCann, told the trial how she could “see the life draining” from him after the attack.

He had just dropped Ms McCann outside her home following her shift at a convenience store when a man approached his vehicle.

Ms McCann had gone back inside to get her sister, who was babysitting her children, with Mr Ferns due to drive her home.

She said she spotted a man at her partner’s window but told the court she was not concerned as “Tony knew everybody” and believed it was likely a friend.

She heard the car suddenly screech and the vehicle head towards the nearby home Mr Ferns shared with his mother Phyliss, where it stopped.

Ms McCann said she could not “comprehend” what had happened, and remembered shouting to Mr Ferns, who replied: “Angie, I have been stabbed.”

She said she called 999 and held a towel to the wound to stem the bleeding.

A pathologist told the court he had died from a “stab wound of the heart”.

Dr Gemma Kemp, who carried out the post-mortem examination on the body, told the trial a “severe” level of force would have been required to inflict the fatal blow.

In her victim impact statement, Phyllis Ferns, spoke of her “loss and the enduring effect of the death of her son”.

The court heard how Mr Ferns blamed Park, known as Rab, for his disabled brother Mark being injured in a road accident.

Mr Ferns thought Park had “made the phone call” that brought the car into the street and knocked down his brother.

Mark, who was registered blind, died in 2017.

The trial was told there were a number of clashes between the two men, including one instance in which Mr Ferns punched Park.

On another occasion, Mr Ferns and a friend were attacked by two men wielding swords and bats while they sat in a van.

Mr Ferns was said to believe one of the men involved was Park, while the other was McCulloch, however this was not confirmed.

A “truce” was later called between the men following a meeting at a bookmaker’s in 2017.

Mr Ferns’ mother told the trial Park had told her son: “You were getting murdered. I’ll make the phone call and call them off.”

Lawyers for Park had claimed Mr Ferns was “fixated” with him and said that Park had been forced to move house as a result, however that was also not confirmed.

Sentencing, Lord Fairley described the killing as a “targeted and pre-planned assassination”.

Platt had previously faced two other trials for knife-related crimes.

In 1995, he was cleared of stabbing Daniel Harley to death in a taxi office in Glasgow’s Govan.

He was found guilty of the “body in the carpet” murder of 20-year-old Marc Hayes in the same area of the city in 2000, but appeal judges later quashed that conviction.

Platt instead pled guilty to the lesser charge of culpable homicide on the eve of a retrial and was sentenced to 14 years.

He was also jailed for nine years in 2013 for the attempted murder of Edward Bennett, also in Govan, but was released four years early in August 2018.

Det Ch Insp Ally Semple said: “Tony had just dropped his girlfriend off at her flat when he was attacked.

“This was witnessed by his mother and his girlfriend who were both left devastated by what they saw that day.

“Our thoughts are with them, other family members and friends of Tony. I hope they now feel some kind of closure that justice has been done.”