The parents of a 24 year old man who was found dead in Wick harbour almost 20 years ago are calling for a cold case review into their son’s death.

Hugh and June McLeod are seeking an urgent meeting with Scotland’s new chief constable Philip Gormley to discuss what they believe was criminal negligence on the part of the old Northern Constabulary.

Kevin McLeod, a 24-year-old labourer who was engaged to be married, drowned in Wick harbour on the night of February 7, 1997. He did so after sustaining serious injuries to his abdomen. A fatal accident inquiry ended a year later with an open verdict.

But it criticised the force’s initial handling of the case, including a lack of senior officers, door-to-door enquiries and the failure to trace a man who was seen in a confrontation with Mr McLeod the night he was last seen.

Northern Constabulary and its officers have long held Kevin died in a tragic accident. Mr and Mrs McLeod suspect he was murdered, having suffered a beating shortly before his death.

In their letter to Mr Gormley they highlight that the procurator fiscal at the time in Wick had received a report from the pathologist in Inverness that Kevin had a burst liver and internal bleeding, possibly consistent with a kicking received several hours before death.

The fiscal had instructed it be treated as a murder inquiry. But the police did not act accordingly.

In 2013 the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner John McNeill ordered the force to carry out a review as to whether they were instructed in this way

Mr McNeill’s report confirmed that the fiscal’s position was that he contacted the detective sergeant leading the investigation and "instructed that the matter was potentially a murder enquiry and should be treated as such".

However the detective sergeant leading the investigation, who subsequently died, concluded that the injuries sustained by Mr McLeod were caused by quayside bollards he came into contact with when he fell into the water.

Northern Constabulary have found no record of the fiscal’s instruction.

Mr and Mrs McLeod say in their letter to Mr Gormley:

“The crux of Kevin’s controversial and high profile unsolved case is that Kevin was possibly kicked to death several hours prior to drowning. The Pathologist and Procurator Fiscal was deliberately misled by police. Northern Constabulary’s dereliction of duty and numerous failings during the ‘alleged’ initial enquiry which also included deliberately ignoring and disobeying the Procurator Fiscal’s order who effectively instructed a ‘murder enquiry’ to be undertaken, was undoubtedly a case of (a) gross negligence of the worst kind or (b) a cover-up for something, or someone. We firmly suspect the latter.”

The family believes that as a result of the fiscal’s instruction not being acted on, any chance of crucial evidence being examined was lost.

In 2007 the then chief constable of Northern Constabulary Ian Latimer was ordered by Jim Martin, Scotland's Police Complaints Commissioner to apologise to the couple over the way his force handled a decade of family complaints about the police investigation

Kevin’s uncle Allan Mcleod told the Herald last night“The family need the chief constable to look at Kevin’s death again as a cold case review, a re-investigation, whatever they want to call it.”

A spokeswoman for Police Scotland said " A letter has been received at the Chief Constable's office and a response will be issued to Mr and Mrs McLeod."