World’s End prosecutor “glad I got to see this monster squirm”

Frank Mulholland QC brought World’s End killer to book for the sake of grieving families

The man who led the prosecution case against World’s End killer Angus Sinclair said it was a “privilege” to watch the monster squirm in the witness box.

Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland QC led the case against the chilling serial killer after making a personal commitment to the victims’ families.

He is overjoyed he has secured justice at last as Sinclair stares into a future that will now not see him eligible for parole until he’s aged 106.

“I made a personal promise to the families that I would do all I could,” Mulholland said.

On Friday Sinclair was given the longest prison sentence in the modern history of Scottish justice. Thirty-seven years after Sinclair abducted, raped and strangled 17-year-olds Christine Eadie and Helen Scott, judge Lord Matthews jailed him for life with a minimum term of 37 years.

Sinclair had been previously convicted of two other killings and was already serving a life sentence. Cold case detectives nailed him in 2001 for the 1978 murder of Mary Gallacher, 17, in his native Glasgow.

During the World’s End trial, he took to the stand to deny having anything to do with the murders. He said he couldn’t have harmed the girls as he’d “gone fishing”.

His dispassionate account earned him a rebuke from Lord Matthews who told Sinclair: “You are a dangerous predator capable of sinking to the depths of depravity. The words ‘evil’ and ‘monster’ seem inadequate.”

With the sentence delivered, Mulholland last night told The Sunday Post of the enormous privilege he enjoyed in cross-examining Sinclair about the World’s End murders and helping deliver justice to the victims’ families. He made a personal commitment to Helen Scott’s father, Morain, 84, and to Christine Eadie’s mother, Margaret Craig, 77, after the case was dismissed in 2007, to do everything in his power to bring it back to court.

It required a change in the law of double jeopardy, which for centuries had prevented an accused being tried again after being acquitted of a crime. Mulholland refuses to take credit for the change, but was delighted that it was delivered.

He said: “As Lord Advocate I supported it, but the Scottish Law Commission looked at it, made positive recommendations to Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, and then it won support in the Parliament.

“I made a personal promise to the families that I would do all I could, and I had every intention of keeping it, but I didn’t change the law. When the law changed, I felt it was my duty as Lord Advocate to prosecute the case.”

He said he had hoped to get the chance to test Sinclair’s special defence of consent to sex with both girls, and incrimination of his late brother-in-law, Gordon Hamilton, saying he was not there when the girls were killed. But he did not count on it as the accused most often take advantage of their right to silence.

He said: “When I started to question him, I didn’t know what he was going to say. It might not have worked out for the best. But I was aware it was a privilege to be able to cross-examine him, to be the person that asked questions of Angus Sinclair.

“As a prosecutor you put the difficult questions to him, and you hear the inconsistencies, the implausibility of his story, the weakness of his account.”

He added that further murder charges against Sinclair would never be ruled out while he lived. “If the right evidence emerges, I would put him back in the dock,” he said.

Sinclair, now convicted of killing three teenagers and one little girl in sexually-motivated assaults, as well as three child rapes, could well be Scotland’s worst sex offender.

He is also the only suspect for a series of three murders in Strathclyde in 1977, all very close in time to the World’s End murders.

Anna Kenny, Hilda McAulay and Agnes Cooney were murdered in August, October and December 1977, and all the killings appear to carry his hallmark.

Mr Mulholland said: “It’s well known that Sinclair has been linked to other unsolved murders with similarities to the murders of Christine and Helen, but we need the evidence to be as solid as it was in their case.”

The Lord Advocate said he would not miss a chance to bring closure to other long-suffering families. He said: “I think we saw what it meant to the families of the girls to know beyond any doubt who killed their loved ones and to know they finally had some justice.”

The difficulty to be overcome in the three Strathclyde cases is that the ligatures used to bind and strangle Anna, Hilda and Agnes have been lost, or were discarded, some years ago when the Serious Crime Squad moved to new headquarters.

While photographs and written descriptions still remain, and many of the details suggest Sinclair’s stamp, only the ligatures themselves could provide crucial DNA evidence.

The Lord Advocate would not be drawn on further specific cases that might be brought under the new law relating to double jeopardy, but well-placed sources have confirmed that Francis Auld, cleared in November 1992 on a not proven verdict of the murder of Amanda Duffy, 19, is a target.

Auld, then 21, was charged with murder after Amanda’s battered body was found in an isolated spot near Hamilton town centre in May 1992. She had a deep bite mark, which matched Auld’s teeth, through her breast.

Amanda’s parents Joe and Kate Duffy have campaigned ever since for the abolition of Scotland’s third verdict, but the change in the double jeopardy laws in 2011 is likely to prove even more significant to their own case.

With substantial fresh evidence, which is understood to have been gathered, Auld is likely to be tried again within the next three years.