Carers arrested by police searching for missing Margaret
THE carers of a woman who has not been seen for 18 years were last night arrested in connection with her disappearance.
Margaret Fleming, 36, was reported missing by her carers Edward Cairney and Avril Jones last October after the police and benefits agency staff turned up at their home.
The couple claimed that Miss Fleming, who has learning difficulties, had left the run-down five-bedroom house in Inverkip, Renfrewshire, only hours before the visit by the authorities.
An intensive police search at the property and an excavation of its grounds lasted several months as part of an international probe into her disappearance.
But the investigation has so far failed to uncover a single independent sighting of Miss Fleming since Christmas 1999, when she was a teenage student.
It is understood that police are now treating their inquiry as an investigation into her death.
Now the carer couple have been arrested in relation to the investigation.
They were detained for questioning on Wednesday evening, spent yesterday being quizzed by officers and are set to appear at Greenock Sheriff Court today.
A police spokesman said: ‘We can confirm that a man aged 76, and a woman aged 57, have been arrested in connection with the Margaret Fleming investigation. A report will be sent to the procurator fiscal.’
Officers were initially asked by social work officers to call at the remote house, which lies next to the coast on the road between Inverkip and Wemyss Bay.
Police said Miss Fleming’s bank account had not been accessed for many years, but confirmed she was in receipt of benefits that the carers managed for her.
The extensive search was conducted inside the house and the grounds and extended over 500 yards into nearby water and woodland. At one stage, officers were seen drilling into the ground at the back of the property.
It is understood to have been filled with discarded junk and litter – piled so high that a window and part of the back wall had to be removed to give police better access to a room.
Debris was also strewn around the garden. A shopping trolley, planks of wood and metal sheets were seen at the rear of the property during the search.
At the height of the inquiry there were many dozens of officers working on it.
Specialist search advisers were drafted in, cadaver dogs deployed and a digger systematically turned every foot of soil in the garden as forensics officers conducted fingertip searches. Inside the house a mountain of documents was examined, much of it by handwriting experts looking for evidence to prove Miss Fleming was living there
The carers moved out to temporary accommodation in Port Glasgow while the task of searching their home and digging up its acre of ground was just beginning.
‘Man aged 76 and a woman aged 57’