A MAN who was cleared of the 1977 World's End murders faces standing trial again following a ruling by judges.
The Lord Justice Clerk, Lord Carloway, sitting with Lady Dorrian and Lord Bracadale, has granted the Crown authority to bring a new prosecution against 68-year-old Angus Sinclair.
They granted an application under the Double Jeopardy (Scotland) Act 2011 and set aside his earlier acquittal, paving the way for a new trial.
The bodies of 17-year-olds Christine Eadie and Helen Scott were found in East Lothian in October 1977 after they had earlier been seen at the World's End pub in Edinburgh's Royal Mile.
Mr Sinclair previously stood trial at the High Court in Edinburgh charged with their murders in 2007 but the judge, Lord Clarke, brought proceedings to an end by ruling there was no case to answer.
It would be the first retrial to be held after the double jeopardy legislation was amended in November 2011.
Before the new laws came into force, people could not be retried for the same crime.
Following the passing of the new legislation by the Holyrood Parliament the Crown asked the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh for the acquittal to be set aside and also sought authority for a fresh prosecution.
The original murder investigation was one of the largest to ever take place in Scotland, with police collating a list of more than 500 suspects and taking more than 13,000 statements from members of the public.
An image of the two young women, which was taken in a photobooth, became a well-known image from the murder case.
However, the investigation was closed in May 1978 with no arrests being made.
The inquiry was eventually reopened 1997 by the former Lothian and Borders force's cold case unit.
A later BBC Crimewatch appeal, in 2003, attracted 130 calls from new witnesses.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article