He got away with murder... and justice system helped him do it
Gran’s savage ‘killer’ won’t face cold-case retrial despite THREE confessions – all because paperwork from original case has gone missing
A CONVICTED killer has confessed to murdering a woman in her own home 25 years ago – but will escape prosecution because of a legal technicality.
Ever since 64-year-old Norah Smith was beaten and strangled in a savage attack in 1993, her grieving family have dreamed of seeing her killer brought to justice.
Soon after her death, Mrs Smith’s neighbour Andrew Kemp was charged with murder and put on trial. But to the disgust of her relatives he walked free from court after a jury found the case not proven.
The family’s belief that a guilty man had ‘got away with it’ was compounded years later when Kemp was found guilty of raping a woman and murdering another.
In 2013, Mrs Smith’s relatives were finally given a glimmer of hope when the authorities agreed to reinvestigate the case and establish if Kemp could be retried for her murder.
The Scottish Mail on Sunday can reveal that Kemp confessed his guilt to at least three people – but, in an extraordinary twist, he cannot be taken to court because of a legal technicality.
Despite the compelling evidence against him, prosecutors say Kemp cannot be charged again with Mrs Smith’s murder because paperwork from the original trial has been lost.
Last night her granddaughter Lyn Lumsden, 48, said: ‘Justice has not been done. There is compelling evidence against him.
‘He confessed his guilt to three people. Surely that should be enough to face a retrial? A guilty man has got away with murder.’
Mrs Smith’s son Stuart, 60, said his mother had been ‘a kind soul who would have helped anyone’.
He added: ‘We were devastated at her murder. Our mother and grandmother is never far from our thoughts, as is the fact that someone took her from us and justice has never been done.
‘We now feel very badly let down. All these years they have been stringing us along without telling us they didn’t have transcripts or a shorthand note of the proceedings. If that was going to kill any chance of a retrial, why put us through all this and why waste taxpayers’ money?’
Mrs Smith was murdered in her own home in Falkirk, Stirlingshire, on January 1, 1993. She was struck on the head with a blunt instrument, hit with a hammer, had a ligature tied around her neck and was strangled. Papers and furniture in her flat were then set on fire to try to cover up the crime.
Soon after the murder, her neigh
‘We now feel very badly let down’
bour Kemp, a known troublemaker with convictions going back to the age of 12 including setting fire to a school and assaulting a teacher, emerged as the prime suspect.
He went on trial in April 1993, accused of her murder. The High Court in Glasgow heard Kemp had hosted a New Year party from which he vanished several times.
He came out of his bathroom with only a towel around his waist and stuffed his clothes into the washing machine for a boil wash. Shortly afterwards, guests saw flames coming from Mrs Smith’s flat and two of them tried to enter to rescue her.
Kemp claimed never to have been inside her home, although his palm print was found on the inside of her bathroom door and witnesses said that they saw him running from the flat.
When police demanded his clothing and footwear, the court heard, he tried to fool them by giving officers the wrong items.
The shoes he had worn were bloodstained, even though he had washed them and cut out a section.
Despite the evidence against him, the jury ruled the case was not proven after Kemp’s defence counsel lodged a special defence of incrimination, blaming another man for the murder.
Kemp then moved to Nottingham and in 1999 was jailed for nine years a rape. In June 2012 he was jailed for life for the murder of his ex-partner Leighann Wightman in October 2011. He stabbed her eight times and was told he must serve at least 22 years before applying for parole.
As police probing Miss Wightman’s murder investigated Kemp’s character, they were told by various witnesses that he had confessed to murdering Mrs Smith.
Crucially, he had given one witness graphic details of the attack which had never before been made public
– and which only the killer would have known.
After Kemp was convicted of Miss Wightman’s murder, the information was passed to the police and Crown Office in Scotland, who announced in 2013 that they would be reinvestigating Mrs Smith’s murder.
Yet despite the existing evidence against Kemp and newly revealed confessions, which all corroborate one another, the Crown Office has now decided it will not seek a retrial. Letters from the Crown to Mrs Smith’s family highlight how strong the case is against Kemp.
Deputy Crown agent Lindsey Miller wrote of Kemp’s confessions: ‘These contained information which was likely to be known only to the perpetrator; it was assessed that the person to whom detailed admissions had been made could not have got the information from any other source.’
She included an extract from the testimony of a witness telling how Kemp had confessed that when Mrs Smith ‘answered the door, he skelped her on the left side of the head with the vodka bottle...
‘He said he grabbed her. He said, “I wrapped it round her neck, then bolted out the house and ran down to Victoria Park”. He said, “I went back up to Norah’s flat and went back in and took the curtain tieback off her neck”.
‘He thought she was still alive because stuff came out her mouth like foam. At that time he never said anything else. He didn’t show any remorse or emotion.’
But the Crown Office letter from last December says the retrial cannot go ahead, while acknowledging how ‘frustrating’ this must be for Mrs Smith’s family.
Another letter, from last month, explains that, despite a request from the family for a review, the Crown has not changed its position.
The letters also contain numerous apologies for the delays endured by the family over more than five years, with promises of updates not being kept, and there are promises to learn from the mistakes made by Crown officials.
Eventually the Crown explained that to authorise a retrial it would have to be able to compare the new evidence against the exact evidence as it was presented during the original trial.
But no transcripts of the original trial exist, shorthand notes of proceedings have vanished or been destroyed, press cuttings do not contain sufficient detail and the notebook of the trial judge, Lord Prosser, who died in 2015, was incomplete and difficult to decipher. Furthermore, much of the evidence has also been destroyed.
Ms Miller explained: ‘The court would have had to be cognisant of the fact that the vast majority of any label productions of any importance have been destroyed and could not now be subjected to any enhanced DNA analysis.’
Ms Lumsden said: ‘It’s difficult to understand why a confession with details only the killer would have known, backed up by two more confessions to different witnesses, is not enough to demand a retrial.’
For Mr Smith, the Crown’s decision adds to the family’s pain at losing his mother. He said: ‘My mother was very proud of her family. She was always happiest when the family visited at weekends.
‘We found her dress still hung up on the door ready for the New Year visits to the family next day.
‘She was also looking forward to her grandson’s wedding later that year. But those simple pleasures were taken away from her.’
A Crown Office spokesman yesterday declined to comment.
‘Vast majority of evidence destroyed’