Truth and Justice For Patrick Docherty

Charge to the Jury by Lord Hardie

Click on the link above to read the document. Some pages will need to be enlarged on your PC to read them.

In court it was said that:

 Mrs McQuarrie the carer, left Mrs Irvine alive at 7.20/7.25 am on the morning Mrs Irvine was killed.

Mrs Connell the former home help, who still assisted Mrs Irvine, turned up to give Mrs Irvine her evening meal at about 4.50pm that night. She found Mrs Irvine slumped over the bed.

PC Graham was the first constable on the scene. He found Mrs Irvine lying face down on the bed with her hands bound behind her back.

Detective Sergeant Bleakley testified that he attended at 5.45pm and was present when the other specialists arrived, including the doctor who pronounced Mrs Irvine dead.

He was also present when the Scenes of Crime photographer took photo's of various tapings.

Detective Bleakley was also present the next day when the pathologist, Dr Black, removed Mrs Irvine's body.

Lord Hardie told jurors, " The third thing to remember about circumstantial evidence is this, that circumstantial evidence may well be open to more than one interpretation and it is your roles as jurors to decide which interpretation you adopt. If you look at a piece of evidence were there may be TWO interpretation. It is for you to decide which interpretation to use."

He also said, " the accused is entitled to the benefit of the doubt".

 An interesting thing was said by Lord Hardie to the jury.

 "If you concluded for instance, that the THIRD accused was involved in this crime, the Advocate Depute accepts that it can only be on the basis of being a look out because there is no evidence and I emphasise evidence to show that he was in the house." ( this is a blatant misdirection)

There is no evidence that either Docherty or Dixon were in the house either.So why did Miller get preferential treatment?

 Mrs Paton said she saw Colin Miller on 3 occasions on the morning of the murder.

She said she saw him at 6am, 6.40am and 7 am.

The jury retired at 13.03 to reach a verdict. 

The jury were brought back in at 16.28 the same day.

Lord Hardie told the jury that he had brought them back to enquire about the state of their deliberations.

He said that there was no pressure to decide, that they could take as long as they liked. He just wanted to know whether they were close to reaching a decision.

The Foreman of the jury said no.

The jurors were then sent to a hotel for the night.

When the jury returned the next morning, they had their verdict.  Guilty!!