Trial aBandonEd aFtEr inCidEnt with juror

An abduction trial was abandoned after a juror approached a witness in a pub during an overnight adjournment.

The incident occurred last week but could not be reported until yesterday, when the Crown accepted a plea of not guilty from the accused.

The alleged abduction victim had told a jury she was forced to drive to a lonely wood by former boyfriend Alexander McKinlay, 28.

She said he then guzzled cider, threatened to slash and stab her with a Stanley knife, or lock her in her car and hang himself in front of her, or crash her car and kill them both, during a drama that lasted several hours.

The alleged incident was said to have occurred in woods at Camphill, Blairdrummond, near Doune, in February last year.

The woman said her ordeal ended when she persuaded McKinlay she was hungry and he drove her into nearby Dunblane for chips.

There she asked to go into a pub to use the toilet and managed to alert a barman to call the police.

McKinlay made off and was stopped by police on the M6 in Cumbria the next day, still at the wheel of her car, the court heard.

The trial, at Stirling Sheriff Court, was abandoned on Friday after the hotel barman, John Marr, said he had been approached in a Stirling pub by a member of the jury on Thursday night, after the case was adjourned for the day with him still in the middle of his evidence.

Defence agent Virgil Crawford said that the jury had been “compromised” as a result.

After legal discussions, Sheriff Wylie Robertson deserted the trial and ordered that a fresh trial should start yesterday with a fresh jury. However, when McKinlay reappeared, prosecutor Sarah Lumsden said she would accept pleas that he had first offered at the start of the original trial last Wednesday.

McKinlay, of Teith Road, Deanston, admitted stealing the woman’s mobile phone, car keys, and car, and driving it while unfit through drink.

His pleas of not guilty to abducting her and possessing the Stanley knife were accepted, and he was formally found not guilty of these two allegations.

Sentence on the remaining charges was deferred until April 6, and McKinlay’s bail was continued.

The juror was never identified.