The World's End Read online

  The World’s End Murders

  Tom Wood was one of Scotland’s most senior and experienced operational police officers. He is an authority on crime, the policing of large-scale events and a noted authority on police perspectives on drugs and alcohol. He was appointed a Commander of the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit in 1994 and was awarded The Queen’s Police Medal in 1995. Latterly he was Deputy Chief Constable and Director of Operations of Lothian and Borders Police and Officer in Overall Command of the linked murder investigation into the deaths of a number of young women, including Helen Scott and Christine Eadie. Since leaving the Police he has worked in the field of Alcohol and Drug Strategy, Early Interventions policy and, latterly, Adult and Child Protection strategy.

  First published in 2014 by

  Birlinn Limited

  West Newington House

  10 Newington Road

  Edinburgh

  EH9 1QS

  www.birlinn.co.uk

  Originally published as The World’s End: A Thirty-Year Quest for Justice

  by Birlinn Ltd in 2008

  Copyright © 2008 and 2014, Tom Wood and David Johnston

  The moral right of Tom Wood and David Johnston to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.

  ISBN: 978 1 78027 210 8

  eISBN: 978 0 85790 218 4

  British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  Designed and typeset by Iolaire Typesetting, Newtonmore

  Printed and bound by Bell and Bain Ltd, Glasgow

  Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Introduction

  1

  The World’s End

  2

  Helen and Christine

  3

  The First Investigation

  4

  The Breakthrough

  5

  Angus Sinclair

  6

  The Second Man

  7

  Family Ties

  8

  Operation Trinity

  9

  The Death of Anna Kenny

  10

  Two More Glasgow Killings

  11

  Confronting the Suspect

  12

  Trial, 2007

  13

  Double Jeopardy

  14

  New and Compelling Evidence

  15

  Retrial, 2014

  Conclusion

  List of Illustrations

  Anna Kenny – disappeared on 5 August 1977, but her body was not found until 23 April 1979.

  Mary Gallagher – murdered on 19 November 1978. Her size gave her an almost child-like appearance. Angus Sinclair was convicted of her murder in 2001.

  Matilda McAuley – a hard-working mother killed on 2 October 1977.

  Agnes Cooney – a warm and caring girl. She was killed on 3 or 4 December 1977.

  Helen Scott and Christine Eadie, on either side of a friend. This picture was taken shortly before their deaths.

  The World’s End lounge bar, October 1977.

  The World’s End lounge bar, October 1977.

  Artist’s impression of the typical 70s dress style of the men last seen with Helen and Christine.

  Angus Sinclair: a small but powerfully built man.

  Angus Sinclair as he looked in 1982 when he was arrested for a series of rapes and assaults on children.

  Gordon Hamilton, an enigma of a man who left little behind to mark his life. This was the best picture we could trace.

  Helen and Christine – the best of pals and hardly more than girls.

  Helen Scott.

  Christine Eadie.

  The early Edinburgh Incident Room. The clutter of paperwork and files seem alien by today’s computerised standards. DC Stuart King, nearest the camera, DS David ‘Yogi’ Brunton and DC Eric Bowman still did a fine job. SCRAN.

  Near the deposition site of Christine Eadie, October 1977. Primitive crime-scene management by today’s standards – no tape or barrier to protect the scene. SCRAN.

  Searches at the deposition site of Helen Scott, haphazard by today’s standards – no protective clothing and the lack of a systematic approach makes this a scene from a bygone age. SCRAN.

  Early publicity for the investigation. Detective Constable John Capaldi, a stalwart of the early enquiry, stands to the right. SCRAN.

  A photofit of one of the men seen in the World’s End with Helen and Christine. It bears a good resemblance to both Angus Sinclair and Gordon Hamilton.

  A reconstruction of the last known movements of Helen and Christine. Police cadets took the role of the girls.

  The actual Toyota caravanette owned and used by Angus Sinclair at the time of the World’s End murders. We traced all its subsequent owners but found it had been scrapped a few months before our enquiry re-opened.

  Eddie Cotogno – associate of Angus Sinclair. His death is still a mystery.

  Press speculation made the links, just as we did.

  The World’s End as it is today – a popular tourist pub, just as it was in 1977.

  Tom Wood.

  The best at their best. Detective Superintendent Ian Thomas and Detective Chief Inspector Allan Jones. Their persistence closed the case.

  Angus Sinclair – murderer, rapist and paedophile – in 2004.

  Frank Mulholland, QC, an able and tenacious prosecutor.

  Angus Sinclair in 2014 – justice finally done. (Photograph copyright © Alan Simpson)

  Acknowledgements

  The writing of this book has been a privilege and a duty, and I am grateful to the many former colleagues who encouraged and helped me in the process. I am particularly indebted to David Johnston, who has given freely of his skill and his experience in putting this book together. I am also grateful to my long-serving and long-suffering PA, Jeanette Shiells, who has typed, altered and altered again the various drafts and documents.

  Finally, I wish to thank all my friends, past and present for all they have done to brighten my life and improve me. I would also wish to make it clear that even after receiving so much help any errors, omissions or misconceptions are entirely my own responsibility.

  Tom Wood

  November 2014

  This book is written in memory of the young women who were victims of violent crimes in Scotland in the late 1970s, especially Christine Eadie and Helen Scott. Any proceeds due to me from its sales will be donated to Victim Support Scotland.

  Introduction

  As a rule I don’t read policemen’s memoirs. With some notable exceptions, they are usually turgid and sometimes self-seeking. I hope this is not such a memoir.

  This is an account of the murder of two young women, Christine Eadie and Helen Scott, who died in October 1977. It is the story of these crimes and of the thirty-seven-year investigation that followed.

  This is not a gruesome tale of murder – the families of these young girls have suffered enough. Nor is this account devoted to the controversy in which the first trial of Angus Sinclair was brought to an end in the autumn of 2007. I do not write to confront the legal profession or lay blame.

  This story does, of course, have villains as any tale of murder must but it concentrates on the heroes, of whom there are many, the families of Helen and Christine who, with quiet dignity, have carried an unimaginable burden down the years and the police officers, the support staff and the scientists who, over the generations, persisted in their investigations, never
gave up and, though they suffered many a setback, never forgot Helen and Christine and never let go. They number so many that it is impossible to name them all but typical among them is former Detective Superintendent Allan Jones and Forensic Scientist Lester Knibb. With many others, these men resolutely pursued the challenges of the World’s End murders over the years. Their commitment, willpower and eventual success deserve to be remembered more than any courtroom debacle.

  I have been a member of the Scottish Police Service for most of my adult life as was my father before me. This book is dedicated to all these men and women who I have been proud to work with and who have truly upheld the finest traditions of the service.

  Finally, I hope the narrative paints a picture of a time and place in Scottish criminal history and refreshes the public’s memory of what befell two innocent young women, Christine and Helen, as well as the others who were victims of the shocking events of 1977 and 1978.

  1

  The World’s End

  The brutal murder of two young friends on a night out in the pubs of Edinburgh’s Old Town has always hung heavily on the collective mind of Scotland’s capital city. The fact that the girls’ killings remained under investigation for nearly thirty-seven years took a terrible toll on their families as did the collapse of the first trial of the man accused of their killing. The lack of success in the long-running investigation was also the source of great frustration to the police. Over the decades, the force in which I served devoted a huge amount of time and money to trying to solve this awful crime. There had been many breakthroughs along the way and all of them petered out sooner or later but not before the hopes of everyone involved had been raised, only to be dashed again. In policing though, as in most other walks of life, perseverance pays off. So it was to do in this case. Those who persevered the longest showed the kind of professionalism that bordered on obsession.

  For many of the officers and staff involved in the World’s End case, the inquiry marked them and, years later, continued to intrigue them. During the final stages of the investigation, I got a number of calls from long-retired detectives anxious to know how the case had been concluded and, perhaps more importantly, whether anything they had or hadn’t done had been significant.

  Police forces generally pride themselves on their murder clear-up rates and we, like the general public, found it unacceptable that two young women could be abducted from our city, murdered and no one be brought to account. It may happen in other places but not in Edinburgh, not in Scotland. Now, in the twenty-first century, that may seem a strange mindset but back in the 1970s it was a very strong feeling.

  On a Saturday night in October 1977, two seventeen-year-old friends, Helen Scott and Christine Eadie, went for a night out in their home town of Edinburgh. The day was 15 October and it was to become a date fixed in people’s minds for another reason and that would help police greatly later as we asked them to recall the events of that night many days, weeks or ever years later. It was the day after legendary American entertainer Bing Crosby died on a golf course. Events like this can often be used as signposts to point witnesses in the direction we need them to go. They may not recall one particular night on the town out of many others but they will remember the night when the radio was playing non-stop Bing Crosby and tributes to the star were being shown on TV.

  Helen and Christine went to several pubs in the early part of that autumn Saturday night. They were last seen alive in a bar in the heart of the historic Old Town of Edinburgh. Various friends met up with them during the course of that evening and police were quickly able to establish a detailed picture of events – who they spoke to and what was going on in the lead-up to their disappearance. The name of that last pub they visited that night has since been inextricably linked with the killings. Even the pub’s name, the World’s End, has something of a macabre ring to it which seemed to add to the public horror of the events that were about to unfold. The fact the bar stands more or less exactly halfway down Edinburgh’s historic Royal Mile, between the Castle at the top and the Palace of Holyroodhouse at the bottom, did nothing to detract from the crime’s notoriety. It was in the nearby alleyways, known as closes, that some of Scotland’s most chilling crimes were carried out.

  The pub’s name was passed down from the Middle Ages in the aftermath of the Battle of Flodden in 1513 when Edinburgh was a fortified town and its walls ran close to this spot. To go out of the gates was to leave civilisation and the safety of the town. It was literally the world’s end.

  The Old Town provided the backdrop for the crimes of bodysnatchers Burke and Hare and the notorious Deacon Brodie – figures from history whose foul deeds are recalled day in and day out by the ghost tour operators taking tourists through this ancient district. On that October night, its dark past was brought brutally up to date.

  Christine and Helen had gone into the pub with some of their usual group of friends and, by all accounts, fell into the company of two men. After the girls’ bodies were found, the murder inquiry traced in the region of 150 people who had been in the bar at some time or other during that night. Some of them gave evidence that seemed unimportant or minor at the time but which, thirty years later, would appear significant.

  It was clear that slowly the various friends they had been with drifted off leaving Helen and Christine engrossed in conversation with these men, strangers to the usual company. No one was certain about seeing them leave – there was only one possible sighting. What was beyond doubt is that the men seen talking to the girls were not traced at the time of the original inquiry despite being the focus of intense police activity and press publicity.

  The girls were never seen alive again and their bodies were found within twenty-four hours. Christine’s was discovered on the foreshore at Gosford Bay, a beautiful area of the East Lothian coastline some ten miles east of Edinburgh. She had been sexually assaulted, bound and gagged with her own tights and underwear and left naked. Helen’s was found not so far away at Coates Farm, halfway between the coast and the county town of Haddington. She was partially stripped, her arms were tied with a belt and a ligature made from her own tights was round her neck. A second ligature, her belt, was also round her neck and her pants lay near her head. It was as if she had been gagged with the pants which in turn had been held in place by one of the ligatures but then she had somehow managed to spit the gag out. Many years later, the very precise way in which the bodies were left and the way in which bindings were tied and gags inserted would serve as a signpost in the final investigation. From the outset of this inquiry, officers always thought the double murder would, in all probability, have been the work of two men – not just because the girls were last seen in the company of two men but because it would have been hard for just one killer to subdue and murder two fit young people.

  This simple summation of the bare facts of the case can go no way to indicate the shock that it caused – the outrage that such a cruel, vicious and depraved crime could be committed against two wholly innocent young girls out having fun on a Saturday night. This was the 1970s, a time before the general public had become somewhat hardened to violent images and the portrayal of brutal crime so common in the media today.

  In 1977, I was a new boy in the CID and, uniquely, had come straight in as a sergeant, without the usual apprenticeship as a constable. I had been lucky enough to qualify for the fast-track promotion system then operating in the police. At the age of twenty-five, I was a sergeant with much to learn and with a population of highly sceptical older colleagues, many of whom had served since just after the war, as my tutors. To be on the fast track – a ‘flyer’ as we were always called – was both a huge benefit and a curse. In the system of that day, we were guaranteed our first rank early but nothing more. Many flyers fell by the wayside as early faux pas dogged their reputations over their entire careers. Despite this, many of us came through the ranks and did justify the confidence placed in us. By the time I left the police, many of Scotland’s senior offi
cers had come through one of the fast-track promotion systems that developed over the years. In 1977, that was small comfort to me as I found myself in at the deep end and the first-ever flyer to be posted directly to the CID.

  But I did have advantages. My apprenticeship in the police had been the finest I could have asked for. After a mind-numbingly boring two-year spell as a ‘points man’ traffic controller in Princes Street, Edinburgh – the local traders and the Town Council resisted traffic lights till the early 70s – I was taught beat work in the Stockbridge area by a master of the art, Bob Turnbull, a man who taught me all there was to know about the proper way to work a beat as well as fly-fishing. He was to become a lifelong friend. The essence of success was simple – visibility and communication. If you worked hard at these two principles, beat work was a rewarding and successful experience but you needed to be self-reliant. There was not the numbers of fast police cars to come to your assistance as there are now. In those days, we patrolled alone at all times of the day or night.

  You had to be able to look after yourself physically as well as mentally. But my first love was always crime. ‘Thief catching’ always fascinated me and the continual mental game of criminal detection and criminal intelligence intrigued me. Stockbridge, a fairly self-contained village in these pre-yuppie days, was a great place to develop these skills. The infamous brothel in a house in the smart Georgian terrace of Danube Street attracted a colourful cast of characters while the growing number of junk and antique shops serving the emerging hippy trade attracted yet another diverse group of interesting people.

  Looking back I suppose my love of criminal investigation was inevitable – it ran in my blood. My father had been a long-serving detective in the 50s and my childhood memories were of the company of detectives and their tall stories, always funny and exciting to a small boy. I have no doubt that some of them were true as well.