Son cleared of murdering his mother faces retrial under double jeopardy law
A MAN cleared of murdering his mother could stand trial again under double jeopardy laws – 16 years after she died.
The Crown Office has applied to the High Court to set aside the acquittal of Sean Flynn, who went on trial in 2005 for the murder of Louise Tiffney.
Flynn, then 21, was cleared when the jury returned a not proven verdict – but legal reforms mean it is possible to put him on trial again.
The 43-year-old mother of two went missing in Edinburgh in 2002, but her body was only found in April last year near Longniddry in East Lothian.
Yesterday, a Crown Office statement said: ‘The Lord Advocate, James Wolffe, QC, has applied to the High Court for authority under the Double Jeopardy (Scotland) Act 2011 to set aside the acquittal of Sean Flynn and prosecute him again for the murder of Louise Tiffney in 2002.
‘This is the fourth application made by the Lord Advocate under the double jeopardy legislation.’
Scotland’s centuries-old double jeopardy law was reformed in 2011.
The legislation set out conditions whereby an accused can be retried for a crime for which they were previously acquitted, with the authority of High Court judges needed.
Former Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said in 2010: ‘It’s important we prepare for the rare exceptions when this law will be needed.
‘It would only be used for the biggest and most serious cases, probably about once every five years.’
In England and Wales, the Criminal Procedure and Investigations Act 1996 introduced a limited exception to the rule against double jeopardy.
It led to the convictions of Gary Dobson and David Norris at the Old Bailey in January 2012 for the murder of teenager Stephen Lawrence.
In Scotland, a second trial can now be permitted ‘in very serious cases where, after an acquittal, compelling new evidence emerges to substantially strengthen the case against the accused’. Retrials can also be allowed in cases where the original trial was ‘tainted’, for example, by intimidation or where, after an acquittal, evidence becomes available that the acquitted person has admitted the offence.
In November 2014, Angus Sinclair was convicted of the 1977 World’s End pub murders, following reform of the double jeopardy law.
The fresh prosecution was launched as a result of DNA advances since his first, abortive trial in 2007.
At the High Court in Livingston, Lord Matthews said the terms ‘evil’ and ‘monster’ were inadequate for Sinclair, who had left the bodies of Christine Eadie and Helen Scott, both 17, to rot ‘like carrion’.
The judge ordered him to spend a minimum of 37 years in jail for the crimes – the same time the families of Christine and Helen had been waiting for justice.
The teenagers were targeted by Sinclair and his brother-inlaw Gordon Hamilton, now dead, in Edinburgh’s World’s End pub on October 15, 1977.
Their bodies were discovered the next day, dumped in East Lothian. They had been raped and strangled.
It was the first prosecution since the changes to Scotland’s double jeopardy law.
In 2016, there was an unsuccessful attempt by the Crown to reindict Francis Auld for the 1992 murder of drama student Amanda Duffy, 19.
While the murder remains an unresolved case, Auld’s death last year at the age of 45 means it is likely no one will ever be brought to justice.
Two years ago, a killer who evaded justice for two decades was jailed for life for the ‘despicable and cowardly’ murder of a waiter. Ronnie Coulter, then 48, was told he will serve a minimum of 19 years and eight months in prison for the 1998 stabbing of Surjit Singh Chhokar, 32.
Coulter was acquitted at a trial in 1999 but was convicted by a majority in 2016 when the case became only the second to return to court since the ‘double jeopardy’ law was reformed.
‘Biggest, most serious cases’