Daniel Colrain

Daniel Colrain was a 21-year-old bartender from Cathcart in Glasgow's southside, where he worked at the Old Smiddy Bar. To his colleagues and the regulars at the pub he was known simply as a warm, kind and well-liked young man who brought energy to the team he worked with. Before his death he was not a public figure in any conventional sense: he had not sought fame, held office or built a career in the public eye. He became known nationally only in the days following his death, after a violent assault in Glasgow city centre turned him into the subject of widespread news coverage, public sympathy and a rapidly growing fundraising appeal.

Colrain was seriously injured in the early hours of Sunday, 4 October 2026, during what police described as a disturbance involving several men in Royal Exchange Square, near the Duke of Wellington statue in the heart of Glasgow. Emergency services were called to the scene at around 3.05am. He was taken to hospital with serious injuries but died the following day, Monday, 5 October 2026. A post-mortem examination was carried out on Tuesday, 6 October, and the exact medical cause of his death has not been made public. Police Scotland has treated the death as the result of an assault and has not released further clinical detail, and his family, who are being supported by specialist officers, have asked for privacy.

The case matters to the wider public because it quickly became one of the most closely followed violent crime stories in Scotland that week, raising fresh concern about street violence in Glasgow's late night economy. News of Colrain's death prompted an outpouring of tributes from the hospitality community in the city, and the story has continued to develop as police investigate who was responsible.

In the days after his death, the Old Smiddy Bar in Cathcart, where Colrain worked, released a statement describing itself as heartbroken at the loss of its colleague and friend, and launched a fundraiser to help cover his funeral costs. The appeal rapidly attracted donations, passing tens of thousands of pounds within days as regulars and members of the public who had never met him added their own messages of condolence on social media.

Police Scotland's investigation moved quickly. A 19-year-old man was arrested on Wednesday, 7 October in connection with Colrain's death, with a second 19-year-old man also arrested around the time of the disturbance and later released pending further enquiries. As of this writing the case remains an active police investigation, and further details about any charges and court proceedings are expected to emerge in the coming days.