Margaret: Couple face murder trial
Pair also accused of £182,000 benefits fraud
A COUPLE accused of bludgeoning a woman to death and fraudulently claiming her benefits are to stand trial despite police being unable to find a body.
Eddie Cairney and Avril Jones are accused of murdering Margaret Fleming at their home in Inverkip, Renfrewshire, between December 1999 and January 2000.
They are also accused of fraudulently obtaining £182,000 in payments she was due, knowing she was dead.
Cairney, 76, and Jones, 58, both remanded in prison, are also accused of binding her arms and wrists and holding her captive before killing her and disposing of the body. The couple pleaded not guilty to charges at a preliminary hearing at Livingston High Court yesterday.
It is thought to be the seventh murder trial in Scottish legal history in which the body of an alleged victim has not been traced.
Judge Lord Matthews was told Ian Duguid, defending Cairney, and Thomas Ross, counsel for Jones, had a major issue with the fact that police had never found Miss Fleming’s last resting place.
Miss Fleming was reported missing in 2016.
Mr Duguid said: ‘Mr Ross identifies that a large part of the Crown case will be predicated on proof the person said to be the victim of homicide is dead. That’s somequestion thing that could never be agreed.’
Lord Matthews agreed, saying: ‘There’s an issue as to whether a crime has been committed.’
On being told by Mr Ross the evidence to show the absence of the deceased would inevitably be circumstantial, the judge said: ‘The might be what inferences can be drawn. The more agreement the better.’
The defence teams for both accused challenged the way police had executed a search warrant at the couple’s former home. Mr Duguid said: ‘The warrant did not confer power on officers to come in with a couple of JCBs and dig the garden up.’
The judge urged the defence teams to agree as much uncontroversial evidence as possible with the prosecution before a hearing on July 26.
He fixed the trial date for September 27.
Prosecutors claim Cairney and Jones bound Miss Fleming’s arms and wrists with tape and held her against her will between 1997 and 2000.
The Crown claims they destroyed or concealed her remains then pretended to the authorities she was alive between 1999 and 2017.
‘More agreement the better’