Split Thread David Gilroy: murder conviction goes to Scottish Review Commission

[Rolfe]

Would anyone like to defend the possibility that Gilroy is innocent?

His story is something like this. He was only away from the main office for seven minutes around nine o'clock (on the Tuesday), when he's supposed to have carried out the murder. That's not long enough for the events that are supposed to have taken place. (Escalating argument taken to the basement for privacy, him losing it and strangling her, and concealing the body in the alcove.)

His story about leaving the only copy of the minutes of the meeting at home, taking a taxi to his stepmother's house, getting a spare house key from her (as he had come out without a key), her driving him to his house, then him coming back to the office in his own car as this was the quickest thing to do at the time is absolutely on the level, no ulterior motive about needing to get the car so he could transport a body, not at all.

On the Wednesday he really did have a prior arrangement to go to the school at Lochgilphead. Everybody was fussing about Suzanne being missing and he'd had it up to here with Suzanne and he just wanted to get out of the place so he decided to keep the appointment.

His car was already damaged before he left. (To me, this makes the decision to go to Lochgilphead even less credible - over six hours of driving, in a car with three broken suspension coils?) He was concerned enough about the car to have looked underneath it when he stopped at the petrol station in Queensferry Road and there's CCTV footage of him doing that. (But he still decided to drive 135 miles to Lochgilphead...)

He turned his phone off when he left the M9 to save the battery, and also on the way back, the "radio silence" from his phone was just him saving the battery in the middle of the journey both times.

After he passed the Green Welly Stop (which was about twenty past one) he was again so concerned about the state of his car that he pulled over to have another look at it. He doesn't remember exactly where he did that. (Bear in mind the Green Welly Stop has a petrol station with a forecourt, and a big car park. But he drove straight past that without going in and stopped by the roadside somewhere after that to look under his car.) He doesn't think he stopped for as long as an hour and 50 minutes. He wasn't in a hurry. Whatever.

On the way back, same thing. But this time, before he got to the Green Welly, with its garage facilities, help etc., he stopped again at the roadside to look at his car. This time he got out the jack and jacked the car up. He didn't think this took as long as an hour and a half but whatever. (Bear in mind that by this time it was about half past seven and he'd told the cops he'd be at Corstorphine by half past nine, so the whole "not being in any particular hurry" schtick doesn't really fly this time.)

He didn't take the Loch Lomondside road at all, no sirree. He drove back via Lochearnhead and Callander. But what about all those phone mast connections to masts by Loch Lomondside and all across through Drymen, including while he was actually having a conversation with the police, telling them he was nearly at Stirling, but which happened when the phone was connected to a mast at Gartocharn (which is south of Loch Lomond and a long way before Stirling)? No answer at all about that as far as I know. He just says he didn't go that way.

The bin bags were just wee pedal bin liners. He only wanted something to take sweetie papers and sandwich wrappers out of his car, to tidy it up. You see, he'd been asked to go to the police station on the way back, and he didn't want the police to see his car looking untidy when they inspected it.

The "air fresheners" were just those wee solid blocks you buy to fit inside toilets. He just bought them for the house.

So that's his story, as far as I know. Does anybody buy it?

 

[Rolfe]

Well, here's my thoughts.

I think a major row with someone who has a hair trigger could escalate into a strangling within seven minutes. (Bear in mind Gilroy was ex-military, and this is also a point to remember when thinking about shifting a 70 kg body.) What has always surprised me about this is that he went back into the office almost immediately after carrying out an unpremeditated murder. That's some cool. But he may have realised that minimising the time he was seen to be absent was important. But if he was innocent, what rotten luck for him that he just happened to be out of the office at that exact time.

The story about the minutes seems very thin to me. In 2010 these things are on your computer, not just on a piece of paper. Was he saying the only copy was on his home computer and he couldn't access that from the office? That's a bit weird, writing minutes on your home computer rather than your office desktop or a laptop you carry with you. And having these minutes was really that essential? This one, to me, is a "bald and unconvincing narrative". However, if he was innocent, what rotten luck for him that he did this. If he'd just stayed in the office all day and got the bus home, he probably wouldn't have been a realistic suspect at all as he'd have had no way to get the body out of the office premises.

The next day he just wanted to get out of the office and all this fuss about bloody Suzanne not having come in. (No thoughts about all these texts she was apparently sending to him just having stopped suddenly at exactly the time she didn't arrive at her desk, that wasn't worrying him, was it? He just stopped replying to her texts with some sense of relief, that's all?) Well, OK, but at the same time his car's suspension is absolutely wrecked. The entire journey is about 270 miles and most of it isn't motorway. In what universe is this a sensible decision? But if he was innocent, what rotten luck for him that he decided to do that. If he'd just stayed in the office all day he probably wouldn't have pinged the police radar as a suspect until much later in the proceedings, at least.

He wasn't in any particular hurry. He left the office about 11 o'clock. The actual driving time to Lochgilphead and back is six and a half hours. Adding say an hour for the business he had to do there would take him through to 6.30 in the evening. Just how relaxed about time is it normal to be on a business trip like this? It wasn't a picnic outing.

So his concerns about the state of the car intensified and he decided to stop to take a look. How quickly do you make that decision, when the car hasn't actually broken down? Do you pass what's probably the best place to stop and take a look, and then within a few minutes decide to stop in some random layby? There's a petrol station in Inveraray too. If you've already passed the Green Welly before you decide to stop and investigate, why not drive on to that one?

Now, an hour and 50 minutes. Doing what? There's nothing you can do about broken suspension coils, by the roadside. It's not like changing a wheel. You either drive on or you call the AA. It doesn't take an hour and 50 minutes to decide. He didn't think he stopped for so long. Well, that's how much time was missing. He doesn't seem to have any other explanation.

The bin liners and the car-clearing exercise. He wanted the car to be tidy when the police inspected it. Hold on a minute. He's innocent, right? He thinks he's going to the police station to help with the search for Suzanne, because he may have been the last person to see her alive (he said he'd seen her on the Monday). Why would it even cross his mind that the police would want to inspect his car?

Same explanation for the delay on the way back. Again he was concerned about the state of the car, and decided (yet again) to take a look. This time he actually jacked the car up. I'm told it's possible to see the suspension coils when you look under a car, and to tell that they're broken. Had he clocked that during his first extended inspection of them on the way out? If so, what did he think jacking the car up was going to achieve? And why do this before you get to the Green Welly, rather than driving in there and doing it? It doesn't take an hour and a half to jack a car up. Did he think if he stared at them long enough they'd magically repair themselves or something? But again he didn't call the AA, he just got back in the car and drove 100 miles back to Edinburgh.

And he took a 20-mile detour that added half an hour on to his journey, even though it was already getting dark and even without the detour he wouldn't have got to Corstorphine before eleven, when he'd originally told the police he'd be there at 9.30. And no I have no idea why he continues to maintain that he didn't take that detour when there's clear evidence that he did.

But you know, what rotten luck for him that he wasted so much time on his journey, with such a thin explanation and absolutely no proof for it. If he'd just driven directly to Lochgilphead and back it wouldn't have looked nearly so incriminating.

Just look at the rotten luck poor innocent David Gilroy had that day.

His ex-girlfriend with whom he was in a "tempestuous" relationship (and who had just found a new man) vanishes off the face of the earth within a very few minutes in a well-defined place. He just happens to be present at that well-defined place, and off the radar for exactly these few minutes.

He didn't have his car in at work, without which he couldn't have concealed a body. But he just happened to rush home and collect the car an hour or two later, for what seems to be a pretty flimsy reason.

He had arranged to visit the school at Lochgilphead some time previously, and booked car parking space for the Wednesday in anticipation, but somehow no record of that arrangement was available, it wasn't recalled by anyone, and there was no evidence that the car parking space had been booked before Suzanne's disappearance.

He didn't cancel this extremely non-urgent appointment, either on account of the concern about Suzanne, or because his car was quite seriously damaged.

Despite the car not being nearly as badly damaged as the police made out (he says), he still found it necessary to spend a total of nearly three and a half hourse investigating the damage - even though it was something he couldn't possibly do anything about by the roadside

All of this just happened by chance to him, at the same time as someone else lured Suzanne into a car and drove away with her. I don't buy it.

He's apparently not happy that his lawyers didn't put this explanation to the court. Well, now he isn't. His actual appeal grounds wanted to have the statement where he gave that explanation disallowed, on the grounds that he hadn't been cautioned and was ostensibly only being interviewed as a witness, but in fact he was a suspect and should have been cautioned. (Personally I think the lawyers didn't want to put that explanation to the court because it was so flimsy and unconvincing it would have been torn to shreds and he'd have looked even more guilty.)

But hey, maybe I'm being unfair. Does anyone want to take his side on this?

 

[Rolfe]

Actually, I've just had a thought about the petrol station in Inveraray. It's on the Dalmally road, just before the junction of the A819 from Dalmally with the A83.

https://goo.gl/maps/fhqxX1rJUR1LqXVs9

It's a real shame that one doesn't seem to have had a CCTV camera looking at the road. If Gilroy had been caught on that rather than the one at the Royal Burgh Cafe in Main Street West, which is on the A83 after the junction, we'd know for sure whether he drove straight to Inveraray then turned left towards the Rest and Be Thankful to lose the time there, or whether the lost time happened before he reached Inveraray. Pity that.

 

[NightOfTheDemon]

"Would anyone like to defend the possibility that Gilroy is innocent?"

No.

"taking a taxi to his stepmother's house, getting a spare house key from her (as he had come out without a key), her driving him to his house"

Was anything discussed during this journey (with Gilroy and his stepmother, former Plymouth MP Linda Gilroy) on the way to Gilroys house ? Did he spill the beans ? Did he enlist her help ?

"His car was already damaged before he left"

When a suspension coil breaks the driver notices a clunking noise, especially when steering left or right, so even if one of his cars suspension coils were broken prior to the journey to Lochgilphead to then have three broken suspension coils on his car when he got back to Edinburgh would just be very unlucky or involve some off roading.

When the car wheel encounters a bump/pothole in the road and causes the spring to coil and uncoil, the energy of the spring is transferred to the shock absorber through the upper mount, down through the piston rod and into the piston.

When a suspension coil breaks the car can still be driven but it is not recommended as this means the broken suspension coil is not effective when absorbing impacts from potholes and the shock absorber works harder.

Worst case scenario is the suspension coil breaks and the shock absorber cannot absorb the full impact and parts of the broken suspension coil penetrates the tyre.

If Gilroys assertion that the damage to his car occurred prior to 5th May 2010 then how did his car have three broken suspension coils prior to his journey to Lochgilphead - was there an east coast disposal on the night of Tuesday 4th May 2010 ?

"He didn't take the Loch Lomondside road at all, no sirree. He drove back via Lochearnhead and Callander. But what about all those phone mast connections to masts by Loch Lomondside and all across through Drymen, including while he was actually having a conversation with the police, telling them he was nearly at Stirling, but which happened when the phone was connected to a mast at Gartocharn (which is south of Loch Lomond and a long way before Stirling)? No answer at all about that as far as I know. He just says he didn't go that way."

I wondered about this, whether the phone expert was mistaken or whether Gilroy thought the police would not bother to match his phone signals to the masts on his route back to Edinburgh.

I think that when he walked into the police station he still thought he could get away with it, he thought he could give a plausible explanation for his lengthy Lochgilphead trip and the police would not look too deeply into his his story and he could walk away.

Suzanne Pilleys case is similar to an ongoing investigation into missing Emma Faulds

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-48238042

"Actually, I've just had a thought about the petrol station in Inveraray. It's on the Dalmally road, just before the junction of the A819 from Dalmally with the A83."

If only this camera was pointing to the A819/A83 junction and was working.



Moving on to the soil types (again)
Glen Shira was searched but Glen Fyne was not searched (according to the search map pdf)
Both areas have the same soil types, there must be a reason ?

 

[Rolfe]

Was anything discussed during this journey (with Gilroy and his stepmother, former Plymouth MP Linda Gilroy) on the way to Gilroys house ? Did he spill the beans ? Did he enlist her help?

I don't think Linda Gilroy, the former MP, can possibly be David Gilroy's stepmother. Here is the Wikipedia article about her. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_Gilroy

Gilroy was selected to stand for Labour in the 1997 election through an all-women shortlist. She was elected to the House of Commons at the 1997 General Election for Plymouth Sutton with a majority of 9,440 and made her maiden speech on 27 October 1997. She was re-elected at the 2001 and the 2005 General Elections. Linda Gilroy contested the 2010 General Election in the newly created seat of Plymouth Sutton and Devonport, however lost she the seat to Oliver Colvile, who won the seat with a majority of just 1,149 votes.

She fought the 2010 general election as the Labour candidate for a seat in Devon. The 2010 general election was held the day after David Gilroy's drive to Argyll - this was one of the "hooks" the police were using to jog people's memories and they spoke to political activists who were out leafleting the day before the election.

There is no way someone who was standing for a Westminster seat in a constituency in Devon, who was already a sitting MP for the area, was living quietly at home in Edinburgh two days before the election, and driving her stepson to fetch his car.

 

[NightOfTheDemon]

My mistake, not stepmother ex MP Linda Glroy but mother Grace Gilroy,West Pilton Place, Edinburgh (aged 76 in 2012.)

https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman....g-around-on-day-suzanne-disappeared-1-2142333

"The court also heard from Gilroy’s mother, Grace Gilroy, 76, who said her son came to her home in West Pilton Place on the morning Ms Pilley disappeared, between 9am and 10am. She said her son had taken a taxi from his office to her address, and she had then driven him to his Silverknowes home after giving him keys to get in."

 

[SpitfireIX]

Ex-MP defends guilty stepson

 

[Rolfe]

[Cross-posting here]

I understand that David Gilroy's stepmother [ETA, whom I now see is indeed the ex-MP] is thoroughly convinced of his innocence. She apparently believes his story about stopping to stare at his broken suspension coils for three hours and so on. I wonder if there is a bit of denial going on. I understand there were friends of Harold Shipman who absolutely believed in his innocence until very late on in the proceedings (I think it was the revelation that he had retrospectively altered his victims' medical records that was the last straw), and people who are close to an accused can be very reluctant to accept that they're actually guilty. In the Gilroy case there isn't a smoking gun like the medical records so someone who is very disposed to regard him as innocent may be able to cling to that position.

I think it's very unlikely that Gilroy would have confessed to anyone and enlisted their help. As soon as someone else knows what he's done, that's a risk that person might either turn him in or inadvertently reveal his guilt. A friend suggested he might have enlisted the help of an ex-army buddy, but I think you'd have to be extraordinarily close to someone to approach them with that request and I haven't seen any evidence that Gilroy was very close to any of his army mates, or that he contacted anyone like that in the immediate aftermath of the murder. Certainly he did contact his stepmother mother, but realistically what could she do? I can't see it.

I was thinking much the same as you [NotD], about the suspension coils. If one was broken before he started, how did that happen? There were some nasty potholes around that spring though, it could have been something that just happened. He might have decided to go on, with one broken coil. But then how on earth did he manage to fracture two more, and one in two places? One broken coil isn't going to predispose the others to breaking to that extent - it still suggests off-road adventures.

Or if he broke three suspension coils before he set out for Argyll, how did that happen? Again it suggests some major off-road driving and brings the focus back to a possible overnight disposal. One way or another, those suspension coils got broken, and it's extremely unusual to see so many fractures in a street car. It's one more thing to add to the litany of things Gilroy was extremely unlucky about. He was out of sight at the exact time Suzanne disappeared. He went home to get his car on what seems a very flimsy pretext. He decided to go to Lochgilphead rather than staying in the office the next day. Rather than go straight there and straight back he wasted well over three hours on the journey with absolutely no evidence available to show he was doing something perfectly innocent. And his car suspension was smashed up in a way that could really only happen if he'd driven it over some very rough going. What lousy luck he had, indeed.

My thoughts on the Loch Lomond detour are rather different from yours, but I admit this is pure speculation.

I think Gilroy set out from Edinburgh knowing exactly where he was going, because he'd been there before and knew it was an excellent place to dispose of a body. I can't explain the non-stop drive to Tyndrum otherwise. I think we start looking at this the wrong way round, imagining Gilroy heading "blind" for Lochgilphead, simply intending to find a disposal site en route. If he already knew of a great place to dispose of a body that was less than 20 minutes off his regular route to Lochgilphead, that could have driven the whole thing. The sudden appointment there, the direct drive through some pretty stellar body-losing countryside (Strathyre and surroundings), and a bee-line for his chosen site somewhere past Tyndrum.

So that's the first part of the plan. I think he realised he was likely to be suspected and his route would be investigated, so I think he'd have gone for a burial rather than concealing the body in a commercial forestry plantation (where I really don't think you can dig unless you have a chain saw for the roots). Sure, dumping a body in the middle of one of those plantations might be enough to prevent it being stumbled upon by accident in the short to medium term, but it probably wouldn't be enough to foil an organised police search, and in the longer term, he needs that body to stay hidden for forty to fifty years.

But then, he'd still rather his chosen place wasn't searched by the police. So he hatches a plan to leave a mobile phone connection trail that will look as if he'd driven to Lochgilphead the other way. He makes sure his phone is only on when he's on roads that are common to both routes. But then on the way home he thinks, if I turn down the A82 at Crianlarich and switch my phone on at Tarbet, then it really will look as if I came through Arrochar on the way back at least. It's not a major part of the plan, it's a bit of an embellishment. But then, in the gathering dusk, tired and stressed, he switches the phone on at Inveruglas instead of Tarbet.

Then he gets to the police station, and that part of the plan really isn't going to fly. The police ask him which way he came, and he realises he has to tell the truth about going via Tyndrum because if he doesn't, and they find out, it's going to look even worse for him. So he admits to his actual route through Tyndrum. But then, how to explain the Loch Lomondside detour? He can't. There's no rational reason for going that way. So he just falls back on denial. I really don't think there's any possibility the mobile phone guy could be mistaken. It's not as if it was only the one connection either, it was all the way back to Edinburgh starting at Ardlui. (A friend who has an app that tells him which mast he's connected to says he quite often finds himself connected to a mast at Drochil Castle when he's at home in the village. That's 5 miles away (8 km) and nowhere close to line of sight, and there are other masts that are much closer. So if that can happen, getting Ardlui when you're actually at Inveruglas isn't even surprising.)

I think he wasn't expecting to be put on the spot so early. At that point Suzanne was just a competent adult who hadn't been seen for 36 hours. It usually takes longer than that for the hue and cry to start. I think he expected a few days grace to work on his story, and maybe the opportunity to let the police assume he'd driven via Arrochar. But when he was directly questioned immediately on his return he realised he had to ditch that plan. Then he didn't have an explanation for the detour.

I know, this is fairly thin, but I can't think of anything better.

Regarding the Londis petrol station, you're right, that camera is pointing at the crucial junction. And it's there in every Streetview image from April 2009 to 2016. If it doesn't get the southbound carriageway it sure as hell should get the northbound (although given the position of that arch I'd say it should get everything). Why the hell wasn't he caught on that? It would put the Rest and Be Thankful theory to bed forever if he had been.

Driving the route as far as Tyndrum I noticed two other petrol stations, one just before Callander and one at Liss Toll. I don't think they're that important, but it's slightly surprising there isn't a record of him passing either of these. I suppose it shows it's a bit hit and miss whether these cameras pick up passing traffic. Possibly even whether they're operational at any given moment.

I don't understand the choice of areas searched. As you say, why not Glen Fyne? Maybe because there's relatively little tree cover there and more houses than in some other places? But even so. And what about the south side of Glen Kinglas? There's no consistency at all between the soil map and the areas searched and I really don't understand this. And in particular I can't see any point in searching the immediate sides of the B8074 (and indeed the B839) when nobody in their right mind would unload a body from a car parked on or right beside a public road, and the state of his car if pretty fair proof he went up a forestry track. The map suggests they didn't go up the Allt Broighleachan track, even though they went past the bridge at the road-end. If that's the case, I totally struggle to understand the thinking.

As regards the suspension damage, this is really striking. Here is the Venables photo of the ford across the track on the way to the deer fence, taken only 27 days after Gilroy's journey. I would imagine it would have looked about the same to Gilroy, as there wasn't an unusually dry spell at that time. You probably wouldn't realise that was more than a puddle, especially if your mind was mostly on other things.

Now here is the photo I took myself last month, when there had been an unusually dry spell and there was very little water in the channel.

It's a lot deeper than it looks in the Venables photo, and there's a fair hump on the far side. Hit that at any faster than a slow walking pace and you're in quite a lot of trouble.

Now that is beyond the picnic place so it argues against a disposal there, and I have to say the picnic place is my favoured spot. But it's a thought.

To be honest I hadn't realised they haven't found Emma Faulds yet, and yet they've charged someone. Ayrshire isn't Argyll, but if they don't find her soon it could turn into a very similar body-hunt.

 

[Rolfe]

My mistake, not stepmother ex MP Linda Glroy but mother Grace Gilroy,West Pilton Place, Edinburgh (aged 76 in 2012.)

https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman....g-around-on-day-suzanne-disappeared-1-2142333

"The court also heard from Gilroy’s mother, Grace Gilroy, 76, who said her son came to her home in West Pilton Place on the morning Ms Pilley disappeared, between 9am and 10am. She said her son had taken a taxi from his office to her address, and she had then driven him to his Silverknowes home after giving him keys to get in."

Ex-MP defends guilty stepson

OK, I see now, thanks to both of you. I had certainly been getting the mother and the stepmother mixed up. Clearly Linda Gilroy would have been very much occupied in Devon that day and it was Grace Gilroy who drove David to Silverknowes.

I knew that Grace and Andrea (his wife) were standing by David, but I hadn't really clocked Linda at all until recently, or properly separated Grace and Linda. My bad.

I note that David was only about 13 when his parents divorced and about 22 when his father married Linda. Given that he was a young adult by the time Linda became his stepmother it doesn't appear as if she had any real part in his upbringing. But she's certainly convinced of his innocence.

This raises something that's slightly puzzling. I understand that Linda is a major figure in the "David Gilroy is innocent" campaign, such as it is. But that there's no serious web presence for that campaign and no publicly available explanation of his side of the story because she's not really internet-savvy and doesn't see the point of enlisting public support, preferring to trust the courts and the legal system. Now if this had been a wee wummin from West Pilton I could just about have swallowed this, but we're talking about someone who was an MP for 13 years. Surely to God someone with that background should be capable of mounting a higher-profile campaign to help her stepson?

 

[SpitfireIX]

I've been lurking in this thread for quite a while, but some recent comments here have finally piqued my curiosity enough to look for more information online. I came across this website claiming to be run by Gilroy's family. I haven't read it all yet, but what I've seen so far appears to be mainly attempts to handwave away or simply ignore inconvenient evidence (such as the travel time discrepancies).

 

[NightOfTheDemon]

The police did not search Glen Fyne or Glen Aray.

The police did search Glen Croe, Lochgoilhead, Ardgartan, Glen Orchy and Glen Shira.

This is a screenprint showing FCS species locations from this website

https://www.environment.gov.scot/data/data-analysis/national-forest-estate/



The screenprint highlights the FCS species locations which mirror the police search areas (Glen Fyne and Glen Aray are not marked)

It is possible the police used this information to refine the search areas.

As Glen Croe, Lochgoilhead and Ardgartan have been excluded as the disposal site (due to the time required to get there and back) it is possible that the disposal site is located in a small area of Glen Shira but more likely the disposal site is off the A85 between Tyndrum and Dalmally or off the B8074.

I would guess the police found Sitka Spruce needles on Gilroys car when they inspected his car.

 

[Rolfe]

I've been lurking in this thread for quite a while, but some recent comments here have finally piqued my curiosity enough to look for more information online. I came across this website claiming to be run by Gilroy's family. I haven't read it all yet, but what I've seen so far appears to be mainly attempts to handwave away or simply ignore inconvenient evidence (such as the travel time discrepancies).

It's a long time since I looked at that site and I've now refreshed my memory. Some of it may be new since I read it earlier and it's probably my bad that I didn't remember about his stepmother being a former MP. Quite the family upheaval. Step-mum loses her seat to the Tories and son becomes the chief and only suspect in a murder case, all on the same day.

It's hopeless. It's all nitpicking about the CCTV evidence in Thistle Street and various other minor points, without going anywhere near the elephant in the room which is the missing time on the journey. I can see what they're trying to do, which is to allege it's impossible for Gilroy to have done what he was convicted of doing in the time available, but I don't think it flies. The judge referred to a prolonged struggle, but nobody really knows what happened in the basement. The actual killing, if by manual strangulation, could have taken a relatively short time. (In fact I suspect he didn't mean to kill her, probably throttled her for a relatively short time - say 30 seconds or so - got a fright when she went completely limp, and then on releasing her discovered she was actually dead, maybe from a carotid sinus effect. I've twice accidentally done that to a pony while collecting a blood sample, only unilateral so both times the ponies recovered, but it's scary sudden.) While I agree it's tight if the 7 minutes thing is definitely proved, it's not impossible. I also think it's likely the family are putting the tightest possible interpretation on the time window and it might not be quite that tight.

The stuff about the blue car making the illegal turn is more fluff. Is it likely that Suzanne, clearly on her way to work, just hopped into someone's car instead and was driven off? Or (even less likely) that she was dragged into the car against her will in the middle of the city centre just at the moment it's at its busiest, and nobody noticed? On the other hand, the chances of a driver dropping someone off at work and then making an illegal turn to get out of these congested small streets, and then not picking up on any police requests for them to come forward? High, I'd say.

Nothing is said about the journey home to get his car. He was in the office before nine. Grace put the time when she drove him to Silverknowes at between nine and ten. We know he didn't leave till some time after nine, and by the time he'd found a taxi and got to West Pilton we're probably around nine-thirty if he set off as soon as he conceivably could. From the perspective of guilt, that makes sense. He's desperate to get that body out of sight and into his car (possibly also realising that he has to get it into the car before rigor makes that impossible to achieve). So he goes immediately to get the car and presumably also something to line the boot with to prevent forensic transfer. From the perspective of innocence, it needs explaining. Why was the only copy of the essential meeting minutes he needed at home? Not a word about that.

It's implied that there is evidence that the Lochgilphead trip was indeed arranged before Suzanne disappeared, but no hint whatsoever is given as to what this evidence actually consists of. If it was clear and compelling I can't see why the defence wouldn't have used it, so I suspect it wasn't as clear and compelling as all that.

Then, about the missing time.

Comparative timings and fuel consumption derived from police reconstruction journeys apparently showing David had driven further than he said and took longer on one leg of the journey than he should have done.

And that's it. Just one leg of the journey, note, and just "longer" with no indication of how much longer. And "apparently". Then there's just some hand-waving about how all these issues can be challenged, seguing into a comment about the suspension coils. Nothing at all to actually explain the missing time. Whichever way you slice it, we have the time he bought the diesel in Queensferry Road, and the time he signed in to the school reception, both clearly him with his face recognisable on CCTV, and these times are close to two hours too far apart. You can't handwave that away by quibbling about split times or implying that the police drove too fast to make him look bad.

The suspension coil link is actually quite interesting as it's a forum thread where about 20 people report problems with broken suspension coils on their Vauxhall Vectras over a period of three or four years. The implication is that it's not that uncommon a problem, Vectras seem to be rather prone to it, and it can happen without going up potholed tracks. It's a point, but I don't see anyone reporting three broken springs at one time. If anything it explains how the things broke at all because most people tend to comment that if you're careful on a track (and Gilroy's moderate-speed driving all day suggests he was being careful) then you wouldn't damage your suspension.

But anyway, not a word of explanation of the missing time, no acknowledgement that we're talking about three and a quarter hours when the Edinburgh-Lochgilphead journey is only three and a quarter hours (one way) in the first place! And no acknowledgement that he lost time both coming and going.

I think this is such a big incriminating point. If this was just an ordinary business appointment that he had decided not to cancel because he wanted to get out of the office, what is the explanation for losing so much time? If he'd gone straight there, spent only half an hour at the school, then driven straight back, he still wouldn't have been back in Edinburgh till about six. Job done, no need to go back to the office. Oh, but the damaged car!

As I said in a previous post, this story is inconsistent. First, it was damaged before he left, but this wasn't so serious to dissuade him from going. But then, some time between the Green Welly in Tyndrum and the Arch Service Station in Inveraray he decides to pull over for another look. Let's have some detail here! Did another spring give way at this point? Was he concerned that the spring might puncture the tyre? What on earth did he do about this that delayed him by nearly two hours?

The only other place this point is addressed is on a different page where Gilroy is said to have helped the police by "describing in detail (and mapping) his travel on 5th May including numerous stops." Numerous stops? As Spitfire says, this is handwaving. Were all these stops between Tyndrum and Inveraray? Or is he challenging the CCTV evidence of the timings? Since the car was clearly driveable, why keep stopping? Or why stop for so long? The dog ate my homework?

If you're going to Lochgilphead on business, you don't keep stopping. He didn't need to stop in order to kill the entire day and not go back to the office. If your car is giving trouble but is still driveable, you probably keep going. If you do stop, you choose somewhere with garage facilities, even if it's just a petrol station. You don't keep stopping at the roadside and then going on again. You don't stop for nearly two hours then just drive on, when it's a problem you can't do anything about anyway.

This is why the whole thing is so suspicious, and why I think it points strongly to the body disposal not being in the Lothians. If he was entirely innocent, the whole episode is completely senseless. If he did have car trouble he'd have spent a lot less time than that on investigating it, and he'd have pulled in to a petrol station to do that. If he was running a red herring after disposing of the body in the Lothians he'd have done enough to get the police interested in the journey and draw their attention away from points south of Edinburgh, but he'd have made sure that in the end his movements could be explained as innocent. As it is, his movements that day were a large part of the case against him.

The web site is a shocker. Compare this one. http://www.justiceforsionjenkins.org.uk/ Anyone reading that would understand the case against Sion Jenkins, the way the evidence was gathered, and the exact points where his supporters believed the evidence was misleading or had been wrongly interpreted. There's also detail on an alternative suspect the police failed to follow up which is a lot more concrete than "there was a blue car on CCTV that hasn't been traced".

The Gilroy one is long on irrelevant nitpicking detail and very short indeed on countering the actual grounds on which most of the rest of the world believes him to be guilty. I don't doubt his family genuinely believe he didn't do it, but if they want anyone else to share that belief they need to do a very much better job than that.

 

[Rolfe]

The police did not search Glen Fyne or Glen Aray.

The police did search Glen Croe, Lochgoilhead, Ardgartan, Glen Orchy and Glen Shira.

This is a screenprint showing FCS species locations from this website

https://www.environment.gov.scot/data/data-analysis/national-forest-estate/

View attachment 40245

The screenprint highlights the FCS species locations which mirror the police search areas (Glen Fyne and Glen Aray are not marked)

It is possible the police used this information to refine the search areas.

As Glen Croe, Lochgoilhead and Ardgartan have been excluded as the disposal site (due to the time required to get there and back) it is possible that the disposal site is located in a small area of Glen Shira but more likely the disposal site is off the A85 between Tyndrum and Dalmally or off the B8074.

I would guess the police found Sitka Spruce needles on Gilroys car when they inspected his car.

Thanks, NotD, that's an interesting find. I imagine the police took advice directly from experts about the soil and vegetation thing rather than just looking at the data for themselves, but I still struggle to see what's going on. Hell's Glen doesn't feature in that map, but it was one of the main locations the police were interested in according to many of the press reports. Is it possible it's not FCS-owned so doesn't feature for that reason? And there's hardly any rationale for searching Glen Shira either. In contrast the Allt Broighleachan forest is lit up like an acid house Christmas tree, but they didn't go there, or not according to their map. It gets more confusing close-up to be honest and I can't even make out the pinewood reserve.

There's also the question of ground-cover vegetation. Heathers? Bog myrtle? Sphagnum moss? The trouble is, all these things are kind of all over, patchily, depending on the exact conditions at any one spot. I don't know how you narrow this down.

And I don't know how you go past the Eas Urchaidh bridge and not go up that bloody track. Unless they did, but didn't mark it on the map? I do know what countryside that has been searched for a body looks like as one of the notorious "railway line killings" in the 1980s happened right next to where I worked at the time and the police searched the area of the footpath I took to the station. They really did a number on it and cleared away brambles and so on - the area was scarcely recognisable by the time they'd finished. But what I don't know is how long evidence of such a search would stay visible for. I didn't see anything on the Allt Broighleachan track to suggest such a search but hey, nine years? I didn't see anything obvious on the sides of the B8074 either, though I admit I wasn't looking for it.

 

[Rolfe]

By the way, I did a lot more to that paper I was working on last year. I've uploaded it in case anyone is interested enough to critique.

www.vetpath.co.uk/jref/gilroy.pdf

 

[NightOfTheDemon]

18 months to find her

Still to read the complete pdf, but I will get round to it.

Have I interpreted this correctly ?

Gilroy was found guilty by majority verdict on 15 March 2012 and sentenced to life imprisonment. The judge ordered him to serve a minimum of 18 years in prison.

From website http://www.scottishparoleboard.gov.uk/faq.asp?q=8#8

Will the Board release an offender who denies his/her guilt?

"Yes. Release on parole does not depend upon an offender admitting his/her guilt"

When do I qualify for consideration for early release on parole?

"A determinate sentence prisoner serving a sentence of 4 years or more usually has his/her case referred to the Board about 16 weeks before reaching the half way point of the sentence."

The halfway point of 18 years in prison is 9 years (15 March 2012 plus 9 years is 15 March 2021)

From June 2019 until 15 March 2021 is about 20 months.

In November 2020 which is 16 weeks (4 months) before reaching the halfway point (March 15th 2021) Gilroy could be considered for release.

To summarise, in less than 18 months Gilroy will be considered for release from prison even if he does not admit his guilt.

 

[Rolfe]

I don't think that's right. I had put it in my paper that he'd be eligible for parole at the half-way point of the 18 years but a lawyer friend said that wasn't the case any more. That there had been such public disquiet about people only serving half the court's sentence that it was now the case that an 18-year tariff was an 18-year sentence. Bear in mind of course that in murder convictions this is actually a life sentence and the 18 years is the punishment part of the sentence, the tariff. So I think he becomes eligible for parole after the tariff is up, that is in 2030.

Also, note the caveats surrounding that part about admitting guilt. It's not so much that they'd require him to admit guilt, as that they'd take a dim view of him not disclosing the whereabouts of his victim's body. Sure, to do that he'd have to admit guilt, but this isn't the same as requiring an admission of guilt. They can keep saying, "That's all very well Mr Gilroy but we thoroughly condemn your attitude in refusing to say where you hid the body," until Kingdom Come as far as I can see.


ETA: I see the passage now in the bit you quoted. "A determinate sentence." Gilroy has not been given a determinate sentence (that is a sentence of a stated number of years), he's been given a life sentence. The 18 years is only the tariff. That bit doesn't apply to him.

 

[Rolfe]

Still trying to be fair (and applying the principles of the book on wrongful convictions that I'm reading at the moment), I can't even get this one to reasonable doubt.

Suzanne was showing every sign of going to work that morning. She had told Mark she was going to work. She was apparently wearing the same clothes as she had been wearing at the weekend but I don't know what the dress code was at IML and "going home to have a shower and get ready for work" which is what Mark thought he was taking her back to her flat to do, doesn't necessarily involve different clothes. A shower, clean underwear, and the same outer clothes isn't that remarkable.

She was still heading for work when she was caught on the Sainsbury's CCTV. She was buying a perfectly normal office-worker's lunch. There's no doubt about that identification. I think the later CCTV image only 20 yards from the IML entrance is her too. Why wouldn't it be? An expert said it was almost certainly her and while I don't necessarily trust experts I don't see any reason to doubt this one. The woman looks like her and the timing is right for it to be her if she was walking from Sainsbury's towards the entrance. But even if it wasn't, we don't have any reason at all to believe that Suzanne wasn't heading for work.

The idea that she would have done all the usual things about going to work, got very close to work and bought her lunch, with no intention of actually going to work, seems fanciful. The evidence also suggests that she was intending to return home at her usual time. She had made no arrangements for anyone to look after her cat, which was shut indoors in her flat - or her goldfish for that matter. She didn't have anything with her suggesting she had other plans, and certainly not that she was intending to stay away overnight.

Current squeeze was Mark, and she had indeed stayed overnight with him the previous night, but she had asked him to take her home in the morning - among other reasons so she could see to her pets. We don't know about anyone else in her life whom she might have been intending to see that morning, let alone run off with.

So she was only a few minutes from the front door even if you only count the Sainsbury's CCTV, and she never turned up at her desk. If she didn't actually enter the IML office building, what could have happened?

Gilroy has made a big deal about the small blue car that did an illegal turn out of Thistle Street and which has never been traced. But what could that have had to do with it? There's no way a woman could be snatched off the busy pavement in the city centre just before nine and bundled into a car against her will. This would have been remarked on, even by the douce citizens of Edinburgh. So if that car had anything to do with it she would have had to have got into it willingly.

Why? She wouldn't have got into a car at the behest of a stranger, so someone she knew? A sudden decision to kick over the traces and go off with an old flame (of which I gather there were quite a few)? I know her love life was "complicated", but this is pretty unlikely. Even more unlikely that said old flame then drove off with her and murdered her (which seems the only reasonable supposition given that she has never reappeared).

Any other possibilities? Thistle Street is right next to the bus station and very close to Waverley railway station. She could have simply walked to either of these public transport hubs and gone absolutely anywhere. Gilroy's SCCRC application complained that a lot of other CCTVs in the area hadn't been looked and and maybe there was evidence she had simply gone AWOL in the direction of a bus or a train. Without any luggage, without her passport, and leaving a cat shut in at home. If she had decided to go AWOL it was going to be a short trip. And why? She'd spent the bank holiday with Mark and seemed to be quite content to go back to work. Also, if I've got her route right, she was walking away from the bus station and the line of bus stops in Princes Street towards Thistle Street when she went into Sainsbury's, as if she'd got off a bus to go to work.

So this is all looking very tenuous. Either Suzanne jumped in a car within a very short distance of her work entrance and was abducted and murdered by the driver (whom we might surmise was someone she knew), or despite heading away from the public transport termini towards work, she turned tail and got on a bus or a train heading somewhere else, and was then abducted and murdered elsewhere. And if you're drawing any inferences from the allegedly "casual, not office wear" clothes she was wearing, this was premeditated? Or on the other hand she was intending to go to work in these clothes but she went off on a sudden whim either on her own or with someone she knew who just happened by in a car.

Am I being unfair when I say this is vanishingly improbable? The proposition that she actually entered the IML premises seems to me overwhelmingly more likely than that she didn't. Outside in the street there were a lot of people about and little opportunity for foul play. Inevitably she would have had to have left the vicinity voluntarily before misadventure struck, and there's simply no reason to suspect she did that.

But supposing something of that sort happened. In that case Gilroy's actions that day and the next were entirely blameless and entirely innocent. But it wasn't just one action in that time that made him look guilty, it was at least four.

• Although he was in the office before nine, there was a seven-minute period when nobody saw him, covering the crucial few minutes when Suzanne would have walked in that door and immediately following that.
• He had no car at work, which would pretty much have exonerated him if that had remained the case, but within minutes of reappearing in the office he suddenly remembered he had to fetch something from home and went back to fetch his car.
• He had to park in the street (how did he even manage that? parking there during working hours is almost impossible) but there is CCTV evidence of him entering the basement where it's assumed the murder happened.
• Despite the hue and cry for Suzanne starting the next morning, and the fact that (he says) his car was damaged, he decided to keep a completely non-urgent appointment 135 miles away. And to compound his bad luck nobody could find any evidence that the appointment had been made before Suzanne disappeared.
• Rather than drive straight to Lochgilphead and back like any normal person on a business trip, or even pull into one of the obvious places if he really thought he had to take a closer look at the car problem, he somehow manages to vanish from mortal ken for a total of three and a quarter hours without any credible explanation for why, or where he was, or what he was doing.

And that's ignoring the cadaver dog because I don't trust the things, and the so-called makeup (fake tan?) on his hands, and the scratches, and the air freshener and the charcoal, because these are details the police could well be embellishing out of not very much.

Notably, if we discount the cadaver dog, there is no evidence that Suzanne was ever in the basement, dead or alive, or indeed in the boot of Gilroy's car. The cadaver dog evidence, if believed, is the evidence that she did make it in to work and was murdered in the basement, so eliminating all the "maybe she got into a car or just went AWOL" possibilities.

I'm prepared to discount the cadaver dog. Without it, do we have an acquittal on the grounds of not proven BRD? I don't honestly think we do and given that the jury was probably not going to discount the cadaver dog, I think he was toast. But can we lose the cadaver dog and keep the conviction, even if we still believe he's guilty on the balance of probabilities?

 

[SpitfireIX]

Scent of a Dead Woman: Can you trust a cadaver dog if there’s no cadaver?

The parents of Madeleine McCann, the 4-year-old British girl who went missing in Portugal in May, were officially named suspects on Sept. 7 by Portuguese police. The change came after developments in the case, including sniffer dogs detecting the “smell of death” on Madeleine’s Cuddle Cat toy and her mother’s clothes. They did not, however, find a body. Can you trust a cadaver dog if there’s no cadaver?

Not really—especially if a lot of time has elapsed since the body was removed from the scene. Cadaver dogs can find the remains of people who have been dead for years or even decades. But it’s much harder for the dogs if the bulk of the remains are gone. In that case, they can pick up the scent from small amounts of body tissue, like a blood stain or nail clippings, or even from materials that came into contact with the tissue. But in the absence of an actual body, the smell of death will dissipate. There’s speculation that Madeleine died on the night her parents reported her disappearance—which would mean that she passed away four months ago. It’s not clear if a detectable scent could linger on her mother’s clothes for all that time.​

 

[SpitfireIX]

I'd love to know how Gilroy and his defenders explain the vegetation on the bottom of his car. Are there shrubs growing out of the streets in Edinburgh? I know the office is (was?) on Thistle Street; maybe the name is literal?

I read in one article that Gilroy's family claims the reports about the vegetation and scraping were unavailable to them at the time of his appeal, but that seems extremely thin.

 

[Rolfe]

It's the McCann thing specifically that causes me concern about these cadaver dogs. I'm perfectly sure there was never a dead Madeleine in their car. I think there is a lot of Clever Hans effect going on. Also, the idea that there's a scent when there's no body is a bit tenuous, especially if the body was fresh and was only in situ for a short time. I can see a cadaver dog being useful when looking for a hidden body, but using it as a reliable determinator of where a body has been, sorry no. I'd like to know if that dog was taken round places in the office where Suzanne's body couldn't possibly have been, with the same degree of urging, and found nothing. A thing like this is no use if you can't get a reliable negative control. Also in this case they swabbed that alcove for DNA and found nothing. A reliable cadaver scent when there isn't enough material to get a DNA profile? That's pushing it.

I think it's a reasonable assumption that the body was in the alcove because where else was it, but this has certainly not been proved and I'm quite interested in whether the conviction stands BRD if that point falls.

I'm unsure about the whole vegetation thing. I don't think we know how much material was recovered from the car. Some press reports make out that the underside of the car was caked with it and if you put that together with the state of the suspension it sounds very striking, but if it was only a small amount found under a wheel arch then it's less conclusive. Still, you do have a point. Just driving on metalled roads doesn't get vegetation on your car. If the vegetation was fresh and there was more than the odd leaf, that's significant. I'm a lot less confident about the ability to localise where it came from in the way the investigators are claiming. Which is why I keep the Succoth Lodge and Duncan Ban tracks simmering on the back burner even though they have a soil type very different from that found around the Rest and Be Thankful. I'd like to see that soil and vegetation report too. For a start I'd like to see who compiled it. It could even have been someone where I used to work.

But really, if we drop the cadaver dog so there's no proof there was ever a body in the alcove or in the car boot, does the rest of the evidence, which is highly circumstantial, stand up BRD? I honestly think it does. The proposition that Suzanne scarpered with someone in a car just before the entrance to IML, or turned on her heel and headed back to St Andrew's Square or Waverley, from whence she came by some mishap that has resulted in here vanshing from the face of the earth seems overwhelmingly less probable than that she made it into the building and met with misfortune there. And there's only one candidate for that misfortune.