Judge halts probe into missing Lisa chief suspect
the prime suspect in the murder of Scots mother Lisa Brown is to be released from custody after a Spanish judge shelved the investigation against him.
It comes a week after Simon Corner, 35, was held on a european Arrest Warrant at heathrow Airport as he got off a flight from South America.
Judge Javier Garcia Ramila acted after state prosecutors requested he ‘freeze’ his two-and-a-half year investigation into Corner – despite him going on the run after being given bail by a Spanish court.
Corner will not now be extradited to Spain to face trial over Miss Brown’s disappearance in November 2015.
Miss Brown, originally from Alexandria, Dunbartonshire, was 32 when she disappeared after failing to collect her son from school. She had lived in Spain since the age of 18 and shared her home in Guadiaro, south-west Spain, on and off with Corner, who is from Liverpool. Police said a ‘violent episode’ had taken place at the home.
Corner was under investigation on suspicion of a crime of homicide or unlawful detention. Formal charges would have been laid shortly before trial if he had been prosecuted.
Five others – four British men and a woman thought to be Spanish – who were under investigation on suspicion of obstruction of justice have also had their bail conditions lifted. the decision is a provisional one – meaning Corner can be tried if Miss Brown’s body is found and new evidence comes to light.
the judge announced his decision in a ten-page written ruling, insisting he was legally obliged to take into account the ‘lack of concrete proof’. he said he was influenced by the claim of a key witness – thought to be a neighbour – who had insisted she saw the missing woman two days after police believe she was killed.
Corner was bailed in April 2016 largely because of her witness evidence. he breached his bail conditions and fled Spain at the end of last year. he was arrested last Monday. the judge, who is in charge at San Roque’s Court of Investigation No2, said he had doubts that Corner was responsible for the crimes being investigated, due to the witness’s testimony and because multiple inquiries against him over the past two and a half years had found no evidence.
Miss Brown’s family offered a £100,000 reward for information at a press conference in Algeciras, southern Spain, last month.
her brother Craig Douglas, 48, sister helen Jordan, 51, and her mother Cathy, 73, attended along with Miss Brown’s former partner tony tomillero, who is now looking after their ten-year-old son Marco at his home in Spain.
‘Lack of concrete proof’