Complaint to police after Sunday Herald exposes serious flaws in evidence

DETECTIVES are set to launch a inquiry following a Sunday Heraldinvestigationwhich exposedseriousflawsina notorious murder conviction.

Lastmonth,wepublishedcrucial evidence that was never put to the high court jury which found William Gage guilty of shooting drugs baron Justin McAlroy in 2002. The documents cast doubt on the trial testimony of three witnesses who all claim to have seen a white getaway car at the scene.

Now the revelations have sparked a complaint to police.

Justice campaigner Paddy Hill - who spent16yearsinjailafterbeingwrongly convictedofthe1974 Birmingham pubbombings - has delivereda dossier which alleges flaws in the evidence at Gage's trial to Strathclyde Police,whichconductedtheoriginal murder inquiry.

He said: "This is not a soapbox stunt or a cheap gimmick. This is not me simply thinking police have got the wrong man for the murder of Justin McAlroy.

"There are conflicts within the trialevidence which I believe can't simply be explained away by blaming a slip of the memory or misperception.

"There is an indisputable need for a rigorous official re-examination of testimony given from the witness box."

Gage's solicitor, Aamer Anwar, added: "It is in Strathclyde Police's interests to reopen this inquiry and to take action as soon as possible."

Any police investigation would centre on the accounts of three key witnesses. Charles Bowman was the sole security guard on duty at a building site close to the murder scene in Cambuslang, near Glasgow, on the night of March 7, 2002. He claimed to have seen a white car screech past his office with its headlights off.

Meanwhile, takeaway delivery driver StephenMaddeninsistedthesame vehicle had driven slowly from the scene with one broken headlight and the other on full. It had stopped beside the building site - directly in front of Bowman's office - to let another car through a tight stretch of road, he claimed.

However, our investigation uncovered allegationsfromBowman'swork colleagues claiming that it would have been impossible for him to see the wholeoftheroadfromhisoffice window.

Joiner James McKinlay also claimed the guard had said police had pressured him to say he had seen a white car. Bowman allegedly told him "he had had a few cans' that night".

Within hours of the shooting, police found a white car dumped and partially burnt out in the east end of Glasgow. Items found within the car contained WilliamGage'sDNAandfirearms residue.

But three detectives and a mechanic examined the headlights of the dumped vehicle and found them to be in perfect working order, despite Madden'stestimony that the left headlight of the car which he saw at the scene of the murder was broken. It is believed that none of this evidence was put to the jury.

The third witness, Agnes Edgar, was 15 years old at the time and was receiving psychiatric counselling. She had been apassenger in Madden's car and told the court she, too, had seen a white vehicle. But she also insisted detectives had tampered with her statement and denied her medical attention during interviews.

The Sunday Herald also believes that Edgar had earlier claimed to not know the colour of the car.

Gage, 34, from Glasgow, was jailed for life in 2004 for a minimum of 20 years. He later sacked his defence team during a failed appeal hearing last year.

Three judges upheld the conviction on the grounds that a sound circumstantial case against Gage could be garnered from the evidence. However, the Crown admitted a key plank was that the killer fled in a white car, an assumption which has never been challenged, until now.

A police spokesman confirmed they had received a letter alleging flaws during the trial, adding: "Police will be liaising with the procurator fiscal in relation to the allegation."