MY CRUCIAL EVIDENCE COULD HAVE SAVED BOTCHED ORIGINAL TRIAL
VICTIM REVEALS HER AGONY AFTER POLICE TOLD HER
Patricia Wallace was shocked when she found out the man who had targeted her was Scot l and ’ s worst serial killer.
Between June and December 1977, there is evidence he went on a ki l l ing spree, murdering six women in seven months, including World’s End victims Helen Scott and Christine Eadie.
That began just a few weeks after he turned his attentions away from Patricia.
She sa id : “I t ’s absolutely terrible what happened to the other women.
“I was heartbroken when I read how they suffered. I truly feel for their families.
“It ’ s something you never get over. I couldn’t have handled it if it had happened to my daughter.”
Patricia is convinced Sinclair would have been convicted at the f i rst World ’ s End murder trial if prosecutors had used all the evidence they held.
She believes that more evidence about Sinclair’s pattern of offending – including his attempt to abduct her – may have led to a successful prosecution in 2007.
In March 2005, Sinclair was charged by police with the rape and murder of 17-year- olds Helen and Christine.
But in September 2007, the trial collapsed after Judge Lord Clarke said there was not enough evidence to prosecute Sinclair.
Critics claimed that prosecutors had failed to put vital DNA evidence before the court.
According to former police chief Tom Wood’s book The World’s End Murders: The Final Verdict, Operation Trinity gathered “a mountain of evidence”, not just relating to the murders but also to other violent or sexual crimes around the same time.
He wrote: “We felt these more mi nor of fences pa inted a background to Sinclair’s behaviour and pattern of offending and there were living witnesses who could have described what happened to the jury.
“It may have been compelling evidence but ultimately we accepted it was the Crown Office’s and the advocate depute’s decision.”
Patricia said: “They asked if I would be willing to testify and I said I would be. They said they would speak to the prosecutor about bringing me over but they later said they didn’t need me.
“My testimony may have helped. If he knew there was someone who got away and could have identified him, it might have shaken him.
“No stone should have been left unturned.”
The outcry over the botched World’s End murder trial in 2007 prompted the scrapping of the “double jeopardy” rule – which allowed prosecutors to put Sinclair back in the dock to face justice.
But Patricia said: “I don’t think there should have been a double jeopardy law in the first place. New evidence can turn up after a trial or someone can confess to the crime later.”
In 2014, she was contacted by Police Scotland again and asked to give evidence against Sinclair.
Patricia agreed to fly to Scotland for the trial but ultimately had to request that she be excused due to personal reasons.
She said: “If I had been able to, I’d certainly have given evidence.”
Sinclair was finally convicted of the World’s End murders in November 2014, with the jury taking just over two hours to return a guilty verdict.
Patricia says it is important for prosecutors to continue to seek justice for families of other victims.
Last month, the Crown Office said recent re- examination of the physical evidence in the Anna Kenny case didn’t establish any new lines of enquiry.
Brewery worker Anna vanished in August 1977 – two months before the World’s End murders – after a night at the Hurdy Gurdy bar in Glasgow.
Anna, 20, was raped and strangled and her body was dumped in remote Skipness, Argyll, but her remains were only found 20 months later.
Patricia said: “I think it’s important that the victims’ families know the authorities are not just giving up on them. They have to give them hope.”
Sinclair has been in prison continually since 1982 when he was jailed for life for a string of rapes and sex attacks.
But the serial killer has a string of convictions for theft, rape and murder dating back to 1959.
In 1961, aged 16, he admitted sexually assaulting and strangling Catherine Reehill, aged seven, in Glasgow.
He was sentenced to 10 years in prison for culpable homicide. A psychiatrist’s report warned Sinclair would remain a “very dangerous sexual case”.
He served six years of his sentence before being set free to murder again and again.
Apart from Helen and Christine, there is evidence he killed four other women between June and December 1977. His other suspected victims
were Frances Barker, 37, Hilda McAuley, 36, Agnes Cooney, 23, and Anna Kenny, all from Glasgow.
In 1978, Sinclair struck again, strangl ing 17- year- old Mary Gallacher in the city.
He wasn’t convicted of her murder until 2001 when a cold case review found DNA evidence linking him to her body.
Patricia was “extremely fortunate” to have escaped Sinclair’s clutches, according to a retired FBI profiler.
Mark Safarik was asked by Scottish detectives to scrutinise the murders linked to Sinclair and spent four months poring over the evidence.
He came to the conclusion that the murders of the six women were linked.
He told the Sunday Mai l he was “not surprised ” by Sinclair’s attempt to abduct Patricia.
He said: “A history of this need- driven behaviour would be expected. Whatever mistake he made with this young woman, he corrected in the World’s End murders.
“He thus changed his MO to compensate for what he may have perceived as a failure in the last case. She should consider herself extremely fortunate.
“Since the UK does not have the death penalty, the solace one can take is that Sinclair will never see the outside of prison.”
A Police Scotland spokesman said: “All unresolved homicides are kept under review and are subject of inquiries from time to time.”