The Apprentice candidate Reece has a brother serving life sentence for murder

The brother of one of this year's Apprentice contestants is serving life in prison for murder.

Last night (5 January) saw the return of the hit reality show, with a whole host of new contestants vying to become Alan Sugar's next business partner.

One of those was Reece Donnelly, from Scotland, a super confident theatre school owner who believes he will make his first million before he's 30.

However, it's now come to light that the 25-year-old's half-brother Nico was sentenced to life in prison after he was convicted of stabbing someone to death.

In 2016, the 29-year-old was found guilty of murder at Glasgow's High Court jailed over the killing of Jamie Johnstone, 21.

Nico had previously claimed self defence, saying the knife accidentally stabbed Mr Johnstone twice while he was trying to protect himself.

Nico Donnelly

He had previously been jailed for 27 months over a separate knife attack six years earlier, and then again over a similar incident in 2014.

In 2019, while in prison, Nico attacked a guard after being banned from the New Year celebrations.

He threw boiling water and sugar over them, and was later sentenced to a further 18 months in prison.

Speaking to the Daily Record, Reece said he wasn't close to his brother.

"I do not know this family member in question," he said. "I was only recently made aware of this news. My heartfelt condolences go out to the families affected."

A family friend said: "Reece has worked hard to build up his business but had to start it up at a bad time – just as Nico was being put away for life. It was an awful time for his family as they didn’t do anything wrong but had to endure a lot of pain because of crimes committed by Nico.

BBC

“The two of them were never close and as they grew older their lives were poles apart.”

They went on: "Reece wants to think about the future and is concentrating on The Apprentice.

"He will be up against a lot of high-powered rivals, with many coming from far more privileged backgrounds than him.

"But he is already a seasoned businessman and has great confidence in himself. He thinks he has a good chance of winning and nobody should rule him out. Everybody in Cambuslang, and hopefully Scotland, will be rooting for him.”

Another friend told the outlet: "Nico was quite a popular boy at school and you would never have guessed he would have become so violent.

"By the time he got to his late teens he was going down the wrong track."