World’s End case evidence ‘overwhelming’
Jurors urged to convict Sinclair
THE evidence against a man accused of killing two teenage girls 37 years ago is ‘powerful and overwhelming’, a court has been told.
Lord Advocate Frank Mulholl and, QC, prosecuting, was addressing jurors in the trial of Angus Sinclair, who denies raping and murdering Christine Eadie and her friend Helen Scott.
Mr Mulholland told the jury that the girls had suffered a ‘terrifying’ death in ‘horrific’ circumstances.
The 17-year-olds were last seen at Edinburgh’s World’s End pub on October 15, 1977.
Miss Eadie’s body was found the following afternoon at Gosford Bay, Aberlady, East Lothian, while Miss Scott’s body was discovered a few
‘The crimes were horrific’
hours later in a wheat field near Haddington.
Sinclair, 69, is accused of carrying out the attacks with his brother-inlaw Gordon Hamilton, who died in 1996.
In his closing speech to the jury at the High Court in Livingston, Mr Mulholland said parts of the accused’s story were ‘ludicrous’.
Sinclair gave evidence earlier this week, saying he and Hamilton met the girls in the pub and later drove to Holyrood Park in his caravanette, where both men had consensual sex with each girl before they all travelled to East Lothian because he wanted to go fishing.
Sinclair said Hamilton left in the caravanette and he thought the girls were being driven home. He has said they were ‘alive and unharmed’ when he left them. He said he only found out what happened to them after reading about it in a newspaper.
Mr Mulholland told the jury: ‘ My only regret in this case is that Hamilton is not sitting alongside Sinclair in the dock.
‘I invite you as a jury to return a verdict of guilty to both charges that Angus Sinclair was responsible with his brother-in-law Gordon Hamilton for these appalling murders.
‘The crimes committed were horrific; you can only imagine the terror and suffering these girls must have felt.’
But defence QC Ian Duguid urged the jury to return a verdict of acquittal on both murder charges. He said they essentially have one issue to address in this case – whether the girls were killed by two men or one.
Mr Duguid added: ‘It’s the only thing for you to decide because the evidence points almost irrefutably towards Gordon Hamilton being the killer.’
He told the jury that if they were to convict Sinclair of any crime, they had to do so on the basis of credible and reliable evidence.
The case continues.