A MURDERER who killed his former lover and hid her body, which has never been found, has racked up a legal aid bill of more than £230,000.
David Gilroy, 51, was sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of the murder of Suzanne Pilley, 38, from Edinburgh, and disposing of her body.
He put her family through a 17-day trial and has since launched several appeal attempts which have been rejected.
The Scottish Legal Aid Board (SLAB) have disclosed that a total of £233,033 has been paid for Gilroy's defence in the trial and his subsequent appeals.
The cash was paid in relation to legal aid incurred by his counsel and solicitors and for solicitors' outlays.
John Lamont MSP, the Scottish Conservatives chief whip, said: "The public will be sickened to see a convicted murderer able to extract so much money from the taxpayer.
"The legal aid process was not designed to be abused by people who simply refuse to admit their guilt."
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