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The Disappearance Of Margaret Fleming

Cochise said:
Well, not many genius criminals that have been caught. A true genius criminal would operate without the authorities knowing a crime had ever been committed.
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Not sure about that. We're getting OT, but I can't think of many (or any) crimes that were committed with nobody noticing.
 
Shady said:
How would you know, unless you committed one
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Well a crime has the consequence of someone profiting from its taking place, be that multimillion dollar tax fraud or the raised social status of beating up someone in a pub. So there will always be evidence somewhere, otherwise, no crime was committed. I think?
 
GNC said:
Not sure about that. We're getting OT, but I can't think of many (or any) crimes that were committed with nobody noticing.
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That's the point though, that a perfect crime would go undetected. Nobody WOULD notice.

As an example, a British publican died a few years ago, long after his wife had disappeared. During pub renovations her body was found in a bricked-up outbuilding.
The assumption is that he killed her and successfully concealed her body. That's a perfect crime.
 
escargot said:
That's the point though, that a perfect crime would go undetected. Nobody WOULD notice.

As an example, a British publican died a few years ago, long after his wife had disappeared. During pub renovations her body was found in a bricked-up outbuilding.
The assumption is that he killed her and successfully concealed her body. That's a perfect crime.
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But he was found out eventually, just too late for justice! Just like we found Bella in the Wych Elm, a crime was committed, then discovered, but getting away with it doesn't make it perfect. Not to me anyway. I have very high standards for criminality.
 
GNC said:
But he was found out eventually, just too late for justice! Just like we found Bella in the Wych Elm, a crime was committed, then discovered, but getting away with it doesn't make it perfect. Not to me anyway. I have very high standards for criminality.
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The publican's wife's body wasn't found until after the assumed murderer was dead and so no longer answerable for the crime. There are bodies found where there is no arrest or prosecution, and OTOH some people disappear with no trace. Perfect crimes.

Also a druggie who shoplifts spirits time after time to fund his addiction is committing the perfect crime. There doesn't need to be an Agatha Christie plot.
 
Yeah, I suppose, but the shopkeeper's going to notice stock disappearing eventually, and someone will notice that someone's disappeared. Just because the culprit gets away with it doesn't mean the crime is invisible, which I think (?) is what @Cochise was on about.
 
Yithian said:
:oops:

I might have said something about this at quite an early stage.
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He did apparently tell the police at the time but it doesn’t seem to have become public knowledge until the trial. The other thing that was mentioned in passing in the media coverage was that they weren’t digging for a body but for bone fragments, of which they found plenty but none categorically identifiable as human.
 
It's good that there will be some justice at last but ... without a body I'm confused as to how they have been able to determine that (a) Margaret Fleming is in fact dead, and (b) she has been dead all this time as opposed to just missing since the carers reported her as such.

Is it just a matter of their stories don't make sense, or is there more that I'm not seeing?
 
GNC said:
Yeah, I suppose, but the shopkeeper's going to notice stock disappearing eventually, and someone will notice that someone's disappeared. Just because the culprit gets away with it doesn't mean the crime is invisible, which I think (?) is what @Cochise was on about.
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I was thinking more of people who go missing and are never found. Some will be runaways, some will have experienced misadventure, but some will be victims of crime as yet undetected. If the perp dies before the crime is detected that meets my criteria.

I'm sorry, this is something of a digression. But if someone commits a crime and is caught and one bases one's estimate of criminal capability on only those who are caught one may be making an underestimate of their capabilities.
 
Schrodinger's Zebra said:
It's good that there will be some justice at last but ... without a body I'm confused as to how they have been able to determine that (a) Margaret Fleming is in fact dead, and (b) she has been dead all this time as opposed to just missing since the carers reported her as such.

Is it just a matter of their stories don't make sense, or is there more that I'm not seeing?
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In the BBC tv interview they stated they didn’t actually report her missing because they knew she was in Poland working as a gangmaster/drug dealer. It was the Inverclyde social services and the Benefits Agency who passed the case to the police. The whole thing is extraordinary and I recommend going back through the reporting of the trial to see the fantastic claims the defence made.

I agree, though, that it’s interesting they have been convicted of the murder in the absence of any concrete proof of what happened, especially considering the requirement for corroboration in Scottish criminal law. I had expected them to be acquitted of the murder charge but be convicted of obtaining money by deception. The case seems to have hinged on Margaret’s learning difficulties making it highly improbably that she was able to support herself independently, coupled with the absence of any evidence of her continuing existance (i.e. no bank account, phone records, physical sightings etc..)
 
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Just shows you, even with seemingly everyone online, on a phone, with some kind of "virtual" presence even if it's just a bank account, there is still the possibility of slipping through the cracks for almost two decades. Or being forced through the cracks, in poor Margaret's case. Makes you wonder how many others have been, too.
 
Schrodinger's Zebra said:
It's good that there will be some justice at last but ... without a body I'm confused as to how they have been able to determine that (a) Margaret Fleming is in fact dead, and (b) she has been dead all this time as opposed to just missing since the carers reported her as such.

Is it just a matter of their stories don't make sense, or is there more that I'm not seeing?
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It would appear from previous stories that there perhaps was physical evidence that she may have been dead, presumably from the house that they didn't appear to clean ever. Charges were dropped about certain things (I seem to remember binding her with tape) but to get such detail the tape must have still been there so there may have been other things.

I am glad these people have been brought to justice. I hope poor Margaret can rest in peace now. Such a sad story.
 
Margaret Fleming: Carers jailed for murdering teenager

Two carers who murdered a vulnerable teenager whose body has never been found have each been ordered to spend a minimum of 14 years in prison.

Edward Cairney, 77, and Avril Jones, 59, killed Margaret Fleming, 19, between December 1999 and January 2000.

Jones then continued to claim £182,000 in benefits until it finally emerged Margaret was missing in October 2016.

At the High Court in Glasgow Lord Matthews told Cairney he must serve at least 14 years.

Jones' minimum life tariff was also set at 14 years.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-49014751
 
This sad sad case has been slow burning for years in the news here. I'm glad there is some resolution, but the circumstances are harrowing.

Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ei. Requiescat in pace.
 
Thinking that a murder conviction in the absence of a body is unusual, I looked it up on Wiki to find there's been hundreds of cases over the years. Some were later overturned.

Here's an odd case from 1660:

William Harrison, a wealthy 70-year-old man last seen walking to Charingworth. After his hat, coat and neckband were found on the side of the road with a sharp cut and sprinkled in blood, his servant John Perry claimed that Perry's own brother and mother had murdered Harrison to rob him, and subsequently dumped the body in a pond. The pond was drained but no body was found. The Perrys then alternated between pleading guilt and innocence, until they were all found guilty and hanged. However, Harrison reappeared in 1662, claiming to have been abducted by Barbary pirates. It has been said that this case caused British courts to not give murder sentences without a body for the next 250 years.
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hunck said:
Thinking that a murder conviction in the absence of a body is unusual, I looked it up on Wiki to find there's been hundreds of cases over the years. Some were later overturned.

Here's an odd case from 1660:
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I've read about that one somewhere, and it's such an odd one... why on earth would the servant implicate himself, his brother and mother when they must know that the chap wasn't actually murdered? The only explanation I'd seen was that they had reason to believe he was dead... as in, they'd arranged for someone to murder him. But then again, that doesn't really fit with them saying they robbed him and dumped the body.

It's a mighty curious one, that's for sure. :conf2:
 
Schrodinger's Zebra said:
I've read about that one somewhere, and it's such an odd one... why on earth would the servant implicate himself, his brother and mother when they must know that the chap wasn't actually murdered? The only explanation I'd seen was that they had reason to believe he was dead... as in, they'd arranged for someone to murder him. But then again, that doesn't really fit with them saying they robbed him and dumped the body.

It's a mighty curious one, that's for sure. :conf2:
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Back then people could be locked up and interrogated for however long it took them to confess, whether they were guilty or not, if the authorities decided they'd done it. It's surprisingly easy to break a person's will if they feel powerless.
 
Murder Trial: The Disappearance Of Margaret Fleming is on the BBC Scotland channel on Tuesday 7 January at 22:00 and on BBC Two on Wednesday 8 January at 21:00.

Police officer tells how 'Margaret Fleming case stuck with me'
  • 7 hours ago

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The police officer who first knocked on Avril Jones and Edward Cairney's door looking for missing woman Margaret Fleming has told how he knew "something wasn't right".
Sgt Chris McKay returned to the house in Inverkip during filming for a BBC Scotland documentary on the murder case.
He described the behaviour of those who were supposed to be caring for the vulnerable woman as "very strange".
Jones and Cairney were last year convicted of murdering Margaret whose disappearance went unnoticed for 17 years.
etc
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-50985823
 
I just watched the documentary, and while the comments and behaviour of the accused are bizarre and contradictory and frankly outrageous at times, I was massively taken aback at the end when the two of them were convicted for murder. I mean, maybe it was just the way the programme was edited, but there was literally no solid evidence that anyone had even been murdered, let alone that they'd been the ones to do it. Ok, ok, she's totally disappeared, and they'd been harvesting her social security benefits for 15+ years. They might well have done away with her. It's very possible. And I can see that people want someone to pay for that. But there was no hard evidence at all. And as for some of the witnesses, they were disgraceful, they didn't get what giving evidence is at all, they just wanted to put their own opinion across (i.e. the teacher, who had to be chastened) or actually god knows what the firefighter thought he was about, changing his evidence on the stand and coming up with this mad stuff about 'smelling burning bodies' when there was a bonfire at the house 9 years after she'd last been seen.

All I can say is, I hope they (I hope I) never end up in a court room with people like that jury. It wasn't proper justice. I thought at least in Scotland you could choose 'not proven'? Even if she was killed, how can you possibly know which one or the other of them actually committed the murder? Both of them were given 'guilty' verdicts to say they Done It, but it just flies in the face of the (lack of) evidence.

I thought it was rather terrifying. If that's what people think 'beyond reasonable doubt' is, the system is truly f-ed and woe betide anyone who gets caught up in it.
 
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Eponastill said:
I just watched the documentary, and while the comments and behaviour of the accused are bizarre and contradictory and frankly outrageous at times, I was massively taken aback at the end when the two of them were convicted for murder. I mean, maybe it was just the way the programme was edited, but there was literally no solid evidence that anyone had even been murdered, let alone that they'd been the ones to do it. Ok, ok, she's totally disappeared, and they'd been harvesting her social security benefits for 15+ years. They might well have done away with her. It's very possible. And I can see that people want someone to pay for that. But there was no hard evidence at all. And as for some of the witnesses, they were disgraceful, they didn't get what giving evidence is at all, they just wanted to put their own opinion across (i.e. the teacher, who had to be chastened) or actually god knows what the firefighter thought he was about, changing his evidence on the stand and coming up with this mad stuff about 'smelling burning bodies' when there was a bonfire at the house 9 years after she'd last been seen.

All I can say is, I hope they (I hope I) never end up in a court room with people like that jury. It wasn't proper justice. I thought at least in Scotland you could choose 'not proven'? Even if she was killed, how can you possibly know which one or the other of them actually committed the murder? Both of them were given 'guilty' verdicts to say they Done It, but it just flies in the face of the (lack of) evidence.

I thought it was rather terrifying. If that's what people think 'beyond reasonable doubt' is, the system is truly f-ed and woe betide anyone who gets caught up in it.
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There's always going to be uncertainty in the absence of remains but I think it was a weight of circumstantial evidence that added up against them. They were the only ones who'd seen her since 1999. No trace of her anywhere since then etc. Their [his] dubious accounts of what she was up to - gang leader in Poland.

What seemed to finally do for them was the fact they'd supposedly got a letter from her written on a London hotel headed stationery subsequent to her disappearance, at which they were coincidentally staying at exactly the same date on the letter. What are the chances? Only my opinion but they were attempting to cover their arses in case her disappearance ever came up, & were not too clever about it.

I'd have convicted them as well. The interview with them which the jury may well not have seen only reinforced that view.
 
hunck said:
There's always going to be uncertainty in the absence of remains but I think it was a weight of circumstantial evidence that added up against them.
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I suppose you're right.
I suppose it's particularly important that the most significant things came from them themselves! Like as you say, the absurd hotel business. Plus the confident proclamations that "she's just left the house" and "she's a gangmaster" (?!) - is that what you call 'hoist with his own petard'. Though as the defence said, just because you think someone's an annoying arse doesn't mean they're guilty. But he'd have been better to have kept quiet. Particularly in the courtroom.
 
Guilty as feck in my layman's view. I reckon he did it, she may've just gone along with it. No actual cast iron proof though.
 
She wasn't exactly the forthcoming type was she. But fancy sitting there shtum if you hadn't actually done it, knew what had happened, and it would mean facing a life jail sentence if you didn't dob the culprit in. No thanks. I mean that kind of suggests they both knew exactly what happened*. Maybe if you've been telling lies to yourself, justifying it to yourself, living with it for so long - you kind of believe whatever fanciful nonsense you say in the end, as it's become normal in your head. Maybe if it had been nearer the date of the crime, and all fresher in the mind, then they'd have been more likely to crack in the interviews? They just looked pissed off in court (not quite the reaction you'd expect for someone wrongfully accused of murder... well I kind of think I'd be alternately terrified and livid).

[edit - *or on second thoughts, perhaps that means you genuinely don't know. Hence the need for at least a little bit of undisputable, properly beyond reasonable doubt sort of evidence]
 
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hunck said:
There's always going to be uncertainty in the absence of remains but I think it was a weight of circumstantial evidence that added up against them...
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This. That hotel letter. And I think what maybe finally screwed the lid shut was Cairney’s behaviour on the stand, which followed the same path he used throughout the investigation; 5% answering of questions with reference to alleged facts and counter facts / 95% insulting of everyone else involved (including the victim). Cairney would have been better off following Avril Jones example and declining to give evidence. I don’t doubt that his brief explained the pitfalls of the alternative route, and coached him on how to negotiate the process. I also have no doubt that said brief spent the duration of his client’s testimony banging his metaphorical head against an imaginary desk from the moment the latter opened his ignorant mouth and tried to gobshite his way out of it. (Although I doubt he was terribly surprised).

As far as I'm aware, Jones has not lodged an appeal yet. I wonder if she’s been advised to hang back while Cairney’s trundles through the system. I also wonder if the fact that she is now outside the range of his influence might act as a diuretic to her ongoing reticence; if Cairney’s appeal fails and that distance becomes, in all probability, permanent, then I think there’s at least a chance that we might hear more from Avril Jones - if she thinks it might help her own cause. I’m not entirely sure that the story is over just yet.

Carse said:
The documentary is fascinating and well worth seeking out on iPlayer if you haven’t already watched it.
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BBC Scotland has made some really quite engrossing crime documentaries - they always manage to get the tone just about right, which is a difficult thing with subjects like this. I'd recommend Crime Scenes Scotland: Forensics Squad, which was broadcast maybe six or seven years back - I think at least a couple of episodes are on YT. Last year's short series, Murder Case was also very good. And BBC Alba has also done an on and off series of crime documentaries - but semi-dramatised and more on the historical side – and in Gaelic, with subtitles. All recommended.
 
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