Courts too lenient - Bullen's father speaks
(From The Orcadian dated October 18, 2001)

Paul Steven Bullen

Killer Paul Bullen spent years in foster care before being shipped up to Orkney to live with his father as “a last resort”.

The move to Orkney from England was to be a fresh start for the then 18-year-old. Instead, he was to batter a man to death and is facing the next decade in prison for murdering Kirkwall man Mr Tommy Miller.

After Bullen (21), was arrested and charged with the crime in May, The Orcadian reporter Lorraine Shearer contacted Bullen’s father, Mr Michael Traynor, who lives in Longhope.

Initially he spoke openly about his son and his upbringing, but then asked what his son had been up to.

“What’s he done now then?” he asked.

Mr Traynor did not know that his son had been charged with the murder of Mr Miller.

“Is he dead?” he asked.

Ms Shearer was given the unenviable task of informing a parent that their child had been charged with murder.

“I tried to convince him to call the police, but he insisted that I break the news to him. So I did,” she said.

“He loves hurting animals – that is the start of a serial killer,” Mr Traynor, a fish farm worker, replied.

While in the cells in Orkney after being arrested Bullen waived the right to have a family member told. He didn’t want them to know.

Mr Traynor said courts had treated Bullen too leniently in the past.

“He was put on probation three times in a row and, to me, that’s a joke. He needed to see the inside of a prison and I was all for him going away for a short, sharp shock.

“He should have been dealt with severely – if they hadn’t been so lenient with him this would never have happened.”

Mr Traynor has not spoken to his son since the murder and has heard persistent rumours that Bullen may have admitted the killing to cover up for someone else.

“People keep asking me why Paul is sticking up for this person – why he’s being a martyr. I’m not sticking up for him. But he’s not the sort of person to have done something like this and, if he did it, he must have been drugged up to the eyeballs or full of drink.

“The only way he’d attack someone was if he was cornered – and if that happened he’d make sure he got out of it.”

According to Mr Traynor, Bullen was born and brought up in Ashford in Kent.

At the age of around ten, Mr Traynor said his son was put into foster care, where he remained for four or five years. Details released during Bullen’s sentencing at Edinburgh High Court on Monday said his mother was a drug-addict.

“He came up as he was going inside. I got a phone call from south, it was the police or his probation officer. They thought it would be a good idea if he started a new life, keep him out of prison.

“He had been in young offenders’ institutions all the time. I thought I’d give it a try. I did everything in my power. I really tried my best with him and really thought I was getting through to him.”

Bullen moved to Orkney around three years ago and initially stayed in his father’s home. A short time later he moved into a house at St Colm’s Quadrant in Longhope and then into Kirkwall during Christmas, 1999.

“I have basically washed my hands of him,” Mr Traynor said.