‘CARERS MURDERED WOMAN – THEN CLAIMED HER BENEFITS FOR 20 YEARS’
CARERS of a vulnerable woman who has not been seen since 1999 allegedly tied her up before killing her and dumping her body.
Eddie Cairney, 76, and Avril Jones, 57, face four charges over the disappearance of Margaret Fleming, who lived with them, and prosecutors now say died within days of the turn of the millennium. Margaret, who would now be 36, was reported missing by her carers from their home in Inverkip, Renfrewshire, on October 28 last year.
Cairney and Jones appeared at Greenock Sheriff Court accused of abduction, assault and murder and fraud worth £182,000 from benefits they claimed.
They were remanded in custody on Friday after their lawyers’ requests for bail were MISSING: Margaret ACCUSED: Avril Jones ( rejected by David Hall.
Prosecutors claim Cairney and Jones locked Ms Fleming in a room in their former home, bound her arms and wrists with tape and held her hostage Sheriff and Eddie Cairney between November 1997 and January 2000.
It is said that between December 18, 1999, and January 5, 2000, they murdered her by inflicting blunt force trauma on her or by means unknown.
Cairney and Jones are accused of disposing of the body and illegally claiming disability payments and carers’ allowances – knowing Ms Fleming was dead.
Neither Cairney nor Jones made any plea during separate hearings at Greenock Sheriff Court. They will appear at the High Court at a later date.
Officers said they are the only people to have seen Ms Fleming, who has been described as “vulnerable”, since a family gathering on December 17, 1999.
A search for her was launched after officers were asked by social work officers to visit her remote five-bedroom house, which lies next to the Scottish coast.
Police forensic teams spent months sifting through the house for any documentation of her life, and a large garden at the property was excavated as part of the search.
Before Ms Fleming started living with her carers, she’d lived with her father in Port Glasgow until his death in 1995.
She then lived with grandparents and her mum until moving in with her carers in 1997.