Mother of missing woman ‘spat at by carer’ and pushed to ground
The mother of missing Margaret Fleming has told how she was attacked by a carer when she tried to bring her daughter home more than 20 years ago.
Margaret Cruickshanks, 71, said Eddie Cairney throttled her and spat on her at his home in Inverkip, Inverclyde.
Mr Cairney, 76, and Avril Jones, 58, are charged with murdering Ms Fleming between December 1999 and January 2000.
They are also accused of obtaining £180,000 in benefits intended for Ms Fleming, knowing she was dead. Both deny all the charges. The High Court in Glasgow yesterday heard that Ms Cruickshanks agreed for Ms Fleming to move in with Mr Cairney and Ms Jones in 1997 after they offered to provide “respite care”.
Ms Cruickshanks said she later went to the house to collect Margaret, then aged 17, on 26 November 1997.
She told the court: “I went to bring my daughter home, but they would not let me take her home.”
Ms Cruickshanks said Mr Cairney pushed her against a wardrobe, throttled her, spat on her and pushed her to the ground.
He then asked Ms Fleming, who did not witness the alleged assault, where she wanted to live. The teenager indicated she wanted to stay at Mr Cairney’s home, Seacroft.
Ms Cruickshanks said she never saw her daughter again, apart from a possible sighting of her at a Morrison’s supermarket in Greenock.
0 Investigative teams dug up the garden of Margaret Fleming’s home during their search for her
Asked what her feelings were as the months of no contact turned into years, Ms Cruickshanks said: “I actually thought she was getting on with her life and enjoying herself in every way possible.
“I never thought the likes of this would happen.”
Earlier in her evidence, Ms Cruickshanks revealed that Margaret had a temper and said: “She took all her anger out on me.”
She said that when Mr Cairney and Ms Jones, who were friends of her late ex-husband Derek Fleming, volunteered to take Margaret for a week at a time, she accepted their help.
The court heard that Ms Cruickshanks sent a Christmas gift to her daughter shortly after she moved in with the couple.
She later received a hand-written note asking her to collect the present or it would be donated to a charity shop.
The last independent sighting of Ms Fleming, who was officially reported missing in October 2016, was in December 1999. No body has ever been found.
The trial, before Lord Matthews, continues.
0 Margaret Fleming has not been seen since December 1999