Carers Edward Cairney, 77, and Avril Jones, 59, have been found guilty of murdering Margaret Fleming, pictured, at their house in Seacroft, Inverkip between December 1999 and January 2000
Two carers have been found guilty of murdering a vulnerable 19-year-old woman and covering up her killing for nearly two decades so they could claim £182,000 in benefits.
Edward Cairney, 77, and Avril Jones, 59, murdered Margaret Fleming using unknown means at some point between December 1999 and January 2000.
The vulnerable 19 year old had moved into their home in Seacroft, Inverkip, in October 1995 when her father Derek died after those closest to her ‘didn’t want her’, jurors at the High Court in Glasgow heard.
Jones was further convicted of fraudulently claiming £182,000 in benefits by pretending that Ms Fleming – who was reported missing in October 2016 – was alive after a seven-week trial.
Ms Fleming vanished ‘from the face of the earth’ around December 1999, and her body has never been found.
Prosecutors alleged that they locked her in a room, cut her hair and bound her arms and wrists with tape and other material.
The case raises serious questions about local social services who only reported Ms Fleming missing in October 2016 when they were unable to contact her.
The jury took around three hours over two days to reach their majority verdict on the murder charge. Cairney and Jones will be sentenced next month.
Holding them jointly responsibility for the death, the Crown claimed the couple ‘literally got away with murder for 16 years’. Ms Fleming, left, is pictured with her carers
The case raises serious questions about local social services who only reported Ms Fleming missing in October 2016 when they were unable to contact her. They were ultimately brought down by ‘greed, arrogance and lies’ after Jones made claims of Ms Fleming having ‘fantastical’ illnesses and conditions in correspondence with benefits officials
Cairney, pictured today, told police he met Ms Fleming 10 days before his police interview in October 2017, and that she was still alive. Her body has never been found
During their trial, which began in April this year, Ms Fleming was described by prosecutors as a ‘friendless and lonely’ young woman who had significant difficulties.
By October 1999, various benefits for Ms Fleming flowed into the household, which was said to have had financial difficulties.
The Crown suggested it was ‘tempting’ for the couple to have the money but not the ‘inconvenience’ of looking after her.
But during an interview with BBC Scotland’s Suzanne Allan in October 2017 the killer couple brazenly denied having anything to do with the disappearance of the woman they were today convicted of murdering.
In the chilling clip, Allan asks if either of them harmed Margaret. Jones and Cairney both reply no, and Cairney adds: ‘Far from it’.
‘She’s come to no harm unless she got harmed in the couple of weeks,’ he says.
Allan also asks whether the pair had heard from Margaret since she vanished, which prompted Cairney to reply: ‘Oh yes, she’s alive and working as a gangmaster in Poland.’
Forensic teams spent months sifting through the house, pictured, for any documentation of her life, and a large garden at the property was excavated as part of the search
Jones, pictured, was further convicted of fraudulently claiming £182,000 in benefits by pretending that Ms Fleming – who was reported missing in October 2016 – was alive after a seven-week trial
Prosecutors alleged that they locked her in a room, cut her hair and bound her arms and wrists with tape and other material. Pictured: inside the house
How, and exactly when, Ms Fleming died, may never be fully known. It remains, as the defence highlighted, a case without a body and without a crime scene.
Holding them jointly responsibility for the death, the Crown claimed the couple ‘literally got away with murder for 16 years’.
They were ultimately brought down by ‘greed, arrogance and lies’ after Jones made claims of Ms Fleming having ‘fantastical’ illnesses and conditions in correspondence with benefits officials.
As police zoned in on the couple, their fabricated stories to explain Ms Fleming’s absence became increasingly ‘farcical’ as they tried to reconcile claims she was both working as a gangmaster and capable of travelling overseas, and that she was someone with major difficulties requiring a number of benefits.
Cairney claimed Ms Fleming is still alive, and had told police he met her 10 days before he was interviewed by officers in October 2017.
His QC Thomas Ross asked him on Monday: ‘Have you ever harmed Margaret?’
Cairney said: ‘No, I certainly have not. I am incapable of harming a lady… just cannot do that.’
Retired marine engineer Cairney claimed that Ms Fleming went missing in early 2000, but came back around a week later.
He also said that Ms Fleming would ‘come and go’ and ‘come back if she needed money’ between 2000 and 2016.
The court heard claims Cairney then met Ms Fleming in London in 2017.
He said he told Ms Fleming police were looking for her and that they were ‘holding us to ransom’.
Cairney insisted that was the last he saw Ms Fleming. He was later detained by police.
A search for her was launched after officers were asked by social work officers to visit her remote five-bedroom house, which lies next to the Scottish coast.
Police forensic teams spent months sifting through the house, where she lived with her carers, for any documentation of her life, and a large garden at the property was excavated as part of the search.
The probe extended more than 500 metres into the River Clyde and also into a nearby woodland but her whereabouts remain a mystery.
Jurors heard that Cairney and Jones became carers for Ms Fleming, who would now be 38, when her lawyer father died in October 1995 (pictured: The Inverkip home)