IT has hung over Edinburgh like a dark cloud for 30 years. The World's End murders were part of the fabric of this city. Not the nice, friendly face the tourists like to see but the dark, sordid underbelly that made the fictional life of John Rebus so believable to those of us who live here all the time. The horrific crime seemed destined never to be solved.
Years ago I went to interview Helen Scott's father on yet another grim anniversary. In his neat front room he talked in a quiet and dignified manner about the death of his daughter and the subsequent grief that also killed his wife.
He never soug
ht publicity. But he always made himself available to keep his daughter's memory alive in the hope that those responsible would be caught and made to pay for their crime.
Now that is never to be.
The collapse of the World's End trial on Monday was a black day for Scottish justice and for the people we entrust with delivering it.
Lothian and Borders Police did their very best in difficult circumstances. Down the years the force has felt a debt to the two girls who went for a night on the town and ended up raped and murdered in East Lothian.
Remarkable developments in the gathering of DNA evidence, eventually gave detectives enough material to build a case they believed would stick. The procurator fiscal agreed and a man was charged and a trial date set. Everyone seemed quietly confident the jury would have enough to convict.
Unfortunately, it never reached that stage because blundering incompetence by the prosecution forced the judge to dismiss the case just a week into a trial that was expected to take over a month. Realising his failure, the lead prosecutor disappeared and was posted as missing.
Sorry. Not acceptable. On Monday night the headlines surrounded the mystery of his whereabouts when the focus should instead have been on two devastated families and why the prosecution fell apart. Alan MacKay is paid an enormous amount of money to ensure bad people go to jail. He failed in his job and on Monday he should have been at court to explain why to Morain Scott and the other relatives.
Instead, he chose to run away and leave Mr Scott to face reporters outside court. He said he was "absolutely shattered" by the sudden end of the case but remained convinced that Angus Sinclair had been involved in the murder.
As Sinclair's appalling catalogue of depravity emerged afterwards, that conclusion seemed obvious. The weedy bespectacled 62-year-old is one of Scotland's most appalling offenders.
He devoted his life to raping and murdering children and young women with some of his crimes seeming disturbingly similar to the killings in the World's End murders. Since the jury didn't get the chance to deliver a verdict, let's be clear here - 30 years ago there is little doubt that Angus Sinclair murdered Helen Scott and Christine Eadie and only got away with it because of mistakes made now.
If he wants to sue for defamation of character, I look forward to seeing him in a civil court where the standard of proof is different. Sinclair only escaped justice in a criminal court because the prosecution messed up by not presenting evidence that even the defence admitted would have been hard to fight. That can't be allowed to happen again.
Margo MacDonald MSP today plans to ask the First Minister for an inquiry into the affair. There is no doubt that lessons must be learned from this case. Thankfully, Sinclair was already behind bars for his other crimes and is going nowhere.
But in other circumstances, such mistakes could allow a murderer to walk free and perhaps to kill again. We need to understand exactly why such a meticulously planned prosecution case could collapse at such a late stage and see that procedures and supervision are tightened to ensure that we can't get to this point again.
That is little comfort to the families of Helen Scott and Christine Eadie. Their only consolation is knowing the man responsible for their torment is rotting in jail and will die there - where he belongs.
It's the yobs who belong in a zoo
A FEMALE keeper trying to protect animals in her care at Dundee Zoo was knocked unconscious by three youths after she disturbed them in one of the enclosures at the weekend.
Earlier this year, the zoo was besieged by knife-wielding thugs who attacked 25 animals and left one dead. During that attack, the youths poked out the eyes of a terrapin, slashed a deer in the leg, cut the hindquarters of a pig and tormented a snowy owl, which was so distressed by the attack that she ate her own chicks.
All of this begs the question, just who are the real animals who deserve to be caged?
Use the past to build the future
I'M just back from filming a feature in the Scotland Street tunnel deep below the New Town. A century ago it linked Waverley Station with lines in the north of Edinburgh.
After the trains stopped, it was used as an air raid shelter and then a mushroom farm.
Today it lies derelict and spooky, but there are plans to reopen parts of it to provide recreation facilities for local youngsters.
It would be great to see remarkable part of Edinburgh's heritage playing a useful role in the future of the city.
The full article contains 927 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
