Real Hard Cases

by Robert Jeffrey

  A remarkable exchange followed. When Mark was told that Kevin had not come home the previous night, he roared out, ‘Oh no!’ and put his head in his hands, obviously seriously concerned. This alarmed Kevin’s parents so much that they were now convinced something had happened to their son – so convinced that they called at the local police office and reported Kevin missing. The sergeant on duty explained the normal procedure, saying that twenty-four hours would have to pass before Kevin could officially become a missing person.

  So the family took the only course open to them and recruited friends and relatives to help in the search for their son. One of the helpers was Kevin’s uncle Allan McLeod from nearby Alness. In the coming years, he was to play a pivotal role in the family’s fight to convince the legal authorities that Kevin had died as a result of foul play.

  During the daylight hours of the Saturday, searches of the harbour and waterfront were done and a relative in the coastguard service was of particular help in this. But the hunt for Kevin McLeod continued even after darkness had fallen and right through the night till dawn. When Kevin had been missing for the required twenty-four hours, the police told the family that they were seeking the services of a diver to search the harbour. And, shortly before noon on the Sunday, when two officers called at the McLeod home, they really didn’t need to speak – it was obvious they were the bearers of bad news. The officers said a body fitting the description of Kevin had been found in the harbour on the bottom under twenty feet of water. They went on to say there were no suspicious circumstances – an amazing claim since the body was, at that stage, still lying on the seabed. The parents identified their son at a local mortuary after it had been recovered from the harbour.

  At this point, the family had been told that an investigation, which included interviewing the town’s taxi drivers who were on duty at the material times, was taking place. Whether this was a deliberate lie or just a case of one hand not knowing what the other hand was doing is unclear but it turned out that no such investigating or interviewing had been done as it seemed as if the police had already decided that Kevin had died as a result of a tragic accident.

  From my time as a detective on the streets of Glasgow, I know that a city murder squad has it knocked into them that the first twenty-four hours of any suspicious death investigation are of paramount importance. When I was a serving officer, we would treat a death as possible murder at least until after the post-mortem. So, at the time the police informed the McLeods that ‘there were no suspicious circumstances’, they could not possibly be sure of this – for all they knew, he could have been stabbed or shot. But their initial diagnosis would determine the path that the inquiry would follow – in this case, ‘accidental death’.

  My investigations turned up an intriguing fact – Kevin had apparently left home for Carters’ Bar but, at one point, he had been in the Waterfront nightclub and, during an altercation there, he had been punched. The police had been told this but took no action. Over the course of the evening, Kevin had left Mark to go to a hole in the wall for some money. Mark had followed him a short time later but somehow he had missed him. Mark then started to look for Kevin. There were two roads that could have been taken and it turned out that Mark chose to take the wrong one and the friends became separated.

  Kevin’s death was officially recorded as drowning and ‘an abdominal injury’ and he was laid to rest on 15 February 1997. At that time, the family wrongly believed that the police were investigating the death as possible murder. Although this was not the case, the police did tell the family more details of what had happened on that tragic night – a night watchman in the harbour area had seen Kevin curled in a foetal position, casually dressed and wearing only a T-shirt in the bitter cold. Another witness confirmed this sighting. If Kevin wasn’t drunk, why was he hunched up for possibly an hour, making no attempt to go home? I would guess an abdominal injury could be the cause.

  The post-mortem showed that Kevin had a ruptured spleen and, in my long career, I have seen many such injuries caused by a violent kick. Indeed, I have attended post-mortems where the pathologist has remarked, ‘Oh, we have a ruptured spleen – looks like you have a murder on your hands.’

  So why was there such reluctance by the police in this case to treat the death as a murder? The public never gives much thought to the internal politics in a police force but I do. This is what worries me. In the year of Kevin’s death, there was another suspicious death in the region and, on this occasion, a man who had murdered his wife gave himself up to the police. That man’s confession meant the police had a 100 per cent record for clearing murder cases but, if there had been two murders and only one is solved, their clearance rate drops to 50 per cent.

  Of course, there are two sides to every tale and the police take on the ruptured spleen was that it had happened when Kevin collided with a bollard located near the spot where the night watchman had seen him hunkered down. The report on the original post-mortem, carried out by Scottish pathologists, included the opinion that the major abdominal injury was consistent with falling on an object similar to the bollards on Wick harbour.

  The Northern Constabulary consulted a pathologist in the south. This was one of the leading forensic pathologists in the UK, Nathaniel Cary, a man who made headlines for carrying out the autopsies on Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman murdered in Soham by Ian Huntley. Among the observations in his lengthy report was that ‘the finding of the fly buttons undone when the body was recovered from the water is in keeping with him urinating at the time he entered the water’. He also offered an opinion that all the factors were:

  in keeping with the deceased standing on the edge of the harbour wall close to the bow of the fishing boat Aurora and, as the result of some free flight, to give rise to the severe and unusual nature of the abdominal injuries.

  In May of the year of their son’s death Kevin’s parents and their lawyer attended a meeting in the procurator fiscal’s office and had the findings of the post-mortem read to them. Mrs McLeod asked about the injuries to Kevin. If there was no bollard, what else could have caused her son’s injuries? She was told, ‘Oh, well, it could have been a kicking.’

  The McLeods were far from happy about the whole business and consulted one of Glasgow’s top lawyers, Cameron Fyfe. In July, they were informed that the procurator fiscal had instructed the police to conduct a new inquiry. After this, they received what, at the time, looked like a good piece of news – there would be a new Fatal Accident Inquiry. It started in May of 1998 and continued on and off till August. But the twists and turns of an unsatisfactory case were far from over. It was proposed that one potential medical witness should be excused giving evidence to the sheriff but, when Hugh McLeod objected to this, it was agreed that the witness should indeed be called but the McLeods would have to pay the witness’s costs of £300. A medical expert from Glasgow’s Yorkhill hospital gave evidence and she said that Kevin had two separate injuries. She discounted the bollard theory and said she could not rule out assault.

  They say the devil is in the detail and I find one detail of this inquiry surprising – a constable, who was one of the last people to see Kevin alive, took the stand at 3. 53 p.m. and the sheriff was told that he had to be at the airport half an hour or so later. The officer spoke only briefly before being allowed to leave catch his flight. Eventually the sheriff ’s determination was that the cause of injuries had not been established but that assault could not be ruled out. The anguish of the McLeods continued.

  A huge blow came in October 2002 when it was announced that investigations into the death were being ‘stood down’ and the officers involved were returning to their normal duties. The family was devastated and, with nowhere to turn, they approached me through the organisation A Search for Justice, which now no longer exists.

  I told the Crown Office of my intention to travel up to Wick. In spring 2003, I met the family and was struck by their determination to get justice for their son. Not much misses t
he locals in such places and the reception staff of the hotel where I was staying knew why I was there even before I picked up the room key. In the way a detective often does, I casually asked a member of staff what had happened and was told that it was common knowledge that Kevin had been given a kicking and thrown in the harbour.

  At the harbour itself, I had a good look round with Hugh and June and the uncle, Allan McLeod, who impressed me with his determination to find out what really happened. Chatting to them, it was clear that, if Kevin had simply fallen in the water, the family would have accepted fate and got on with their lives. Instead, they were consumed by a feeling of injustice. Incidentally, while I was at the harbour, I was being watched carefully by a young guy. Some folk told me that, at one stage, he had been a suspect. I was careful not to go too near the edge!

  I managed to speak to the night watchman who had seen Kevin hunched up and, with the harbour master’s permission, he showed me where he had seen Kevin. Two other witnesses were traced and confirmed what had happened.

  I wanted to speak to the skippers of the two boats that were tied up near to where Kevin was found on that tragic night. I was in luck. Detectives foraging around are not too common in Wick and the local newspaper had noted my interest. The skippers sought me out to see if they could help. All sorts of other inconsistencies turned up. The two boats were the Aurora and Gunnhilda and they had been tied up facing each other about thirty feet apart. Kevin’s body had been found almost halfway between them. The skippers were of the opinion that Kevin had not struck either boat on the way down. Interestingly, they said tide was in that night. That meant that somebody could simply have stepped on to the Gunnhilda and, if a person had fallen on the Aurora at that time, the distance would have been only three or four feet. The police never interviewed the crews of the boats.

  My inquiries turned up the fact that, when pathologist Dr Cary had been shown the harbour, the tide was out, meaning that the drop from the pier to the fishing boats was much greater than on the night Kevin died. I spoke to him about it and he said he had based some of his findings on the belief that Kevin would have fallen at least fifteen feet and he was annoyed that he had not been told of the state of the tide that night. He also suggested that Kevin could have hit the Aurora on the way down but the boat’s skipper disagreed.

  I continued to forage around and came across a woman who told me she had seen Kevin being attacked by three men in the harbour area but she didn’t know who they were. After I told her to pull the other one, she named a man she said had done the actual kicking. From her description she gave, I realised it could have been the guy who had eyed me up on the quay earlier. This woman had been charged with giving false information to the police with regard to the attack. When I talked to the Crown Office about her, I was told she had ‘done a runner’. I managed to find her but she decided against any further involvement.

  Another local woman I found said that, on the day after Kevin’s disappearance, her boyfriend, a well-known troublemaker, had told her that he had done something he would ‘regret for the rest of [his]life’ when in the company of another mystery man. When I passed this info on to the authorities, I was told that this possible suspect had declined to be interviewed. You couldn’t make it up!

  Despite all the effort over the years, we are no nearer obtaining justice for Kevin McLeod. It sickens me but does not surprise me. Country forces have a bad record of refusing help from big-city murder squads, preferring to do their own thing. Indeed, I have personal experience of a case when an offer of help from the Glasgow police was made. The answer from the then big-wigs in the Northern Constabulary was, ‘We can solve our own murders – we don’t need help from outside forces.’

  There is currently much debate about restructuring police resources – not before time. Cases like those of Innes Ewart and Kevin McLeod show the need for it. I believe two families could have been spared much anguish if the real murder squad experts, the men and woman who hunt killers on a day-to-day basis, had been called in. If only …

  2

  PIRATES OF THE LONDON ROAD

  A weekend trip to the ‘Barras’ is a Glasgow tradition. I doubt if there is a family in the city that hasn’t made a pilgrimage to the noisy, untidy, crowded stalls, off London Road, in search of a bargain. Even if you don’t buy anything, there is free entertainment aplenty. As street markets go, it is world famous and deservedly so – all your shopping needs can be satisfied in a place that is so far removed from the atmosphere of a modern chromium and concrete US-style mall that it seems to have come from another planet. Maybe that is putting it a bit too strongly but the Barras are certainly a throwback to another time and another way of life – one-stop shopping that is gallus rather than glitzy.

  As a young cop, I spent plenty of time in there, little realising that, when I retired from the force, it would still be a place where I would continue to exercise my detective skills. Every cop on the beat knows his way round the Barras. On a Sunday, there can be thousands of visitors, some from overseas who might not be to up to speed on the habits Glasgow’s get-rich-quick merchants, and often there are only three of four cops to control the crowds and try to clamp down on the scams that tempt the lowlife who mingle with the majority of honest registered merchants.

  Incidentally, there was a police connection with the Barras since day one for the legendary Maggie McIver, the founder and driving force of the place, was the daughter of an Ayrshire copper. Maggie became a real Glasgow character. Her career as an entrepreneur started on a street in Parkhead when, aged just twelve, she looked after a fruit barrow belonging to a friend of her mother. A born trader, Maggie thrived in the cut and thrust of selling from street barrows, a business where a cheery personality and ready wit with the punters were as important as fresh produce. Maggie soon saved up enough to open a small fruit and veg place in Bridgeton. Running it meant frequent early-morning trips to the fruit market and, on one of her regular visits, she met James McIver who she later married.

  They went into business together renting horses and carts to traders who hawked around the wealthier areas of the west end. It was all going well for the McIvers and they bought some ground in Moncur Street in the east end where they rented static barrows to street traders to hawk their wares on Saturday mornings. And so the Barras were born. The original site is still in use though the area has obviously expanded greatly. This was shortly after the turn of the twentieth century and the Barras was to grow and prosper for more than a hundred years.

  The Barrowland Ballroom was built above the stalls and it attracted dancing-daft Glasgow folk in huge numbers. It survives to this day, often hosting the biggest names in rock and pop. The ballroom also made headlines in the late sixties as the place where a so-called serial killer, who was nicknamed Bible John, picked up his victims. There is now much doubt about whether or not the three dancehall killings attributed to Bible John were, in fact, the work of one man. However, all that is pretty much ancient history – the Barras thrive today though much has changed since old Maggie first hawked fruit from a barrow.

  In the early days, street people of all kinds threw a hat on the pavement and tried to convince the throngs of bargain hunters to toss a few pence into it as a reward for their skills at singing, scratching a tune out of a fiddle, juggling or whatever. For a spell ‘strong man’ acts and even escapologists, in the Houdini mould, would draw a crowd. These days are over now and the entertainment is of a different kind.

  The majority of traders at the Barras are honest folk trying to turn of bob or two selling legitimate goods, albeit at prices below those in shops. But, Glasgow being Glasgow, there are always a few ready to try to take on the law. One Australian visitor told me of the regular laughs he had watching the sellers of illegal tobacco in the streets. They carry no satchels – the pouches of ‘snout’ are secreted into the pockets of their trousers or jacket if they are wearing one. If there are no cops in sight they move around the crowds shouting their ware
s at the top of their voices but, the minute they sniff a cop in the air, they go quiet and melt into the crowd looking for all the world like an ordinary Joe hunting a bargain. When the boys in blue move on, out comes the tobacco and the unlicensed vendors are back in noisy action.

  All this may have amused my Australian friend but more than suspect baccy is sold at the Barras. Much more serious stuff also goes on with unscrupulous dealers doing a brisk trade in pirated DVDs, computer software and the like and that’s where I came back on the scene. After my official police career ended in the early eighties, you could say I went into the entertainment business myself. I had been a copper on the beat and murder squad detective for twenty-six years and, to my own astonishment, my new career would last seventeen years. The offer of a new job come ‘out of the blue’ which was apt for someone who had spent so many years ‘in the blue’! An old contact in the London police had been asked to form an organisation called the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) to represent film companies and others who were beginning to be ripped off through the sale of pirate videos and all sorts of other breaches of copyright. He needed a man in Scotland and I got the job. Amusingly he told me during the interview that two million illegal copies of the video of ET had been sold. Always keen to get the facts right, I told him, ‘Make that two million and one!’ We got on well after that.

  The video pirates and others involved in copyright theft were making fortunes and getting a pretty free run at it from the police in various big cities and the trading standards officers who were too overworked or simply ‘not bovvered’ to paraphrase that talented TV comedy actress Catherine Tate’s catchphrase. But it has to be said it is a difficult area for the investigator trained in day-to-day police work. I had a lot to learn and went south to London for some serious instruction in the ways of the entertainment business. The office, a pretty palatial place compared with police stations in the rough areas of Glasgow, was near Oxford Circus. It might have been an impressive address for the notepaper but it was a nightmare for an employee to get to. I used to park the car miles away and hoof it to the centre of the great metropolis. My colleagues and I were given an introduction to the workings of the film industry – film sales methods, production details, the intricacies of video production and the various hi- and low-tech ways of making fakes. It was intriguing stuff.