THE lawyer acting for convicted killer George MacPhee hopes to petition Scottish Secretary Michael Forsyth within a month to have his client's conviction quashed or reviewed by the Scottish Court of Criminal Appeal.
MacPhee has served 10 years of a 25-year sentence for the brutal murder of Highland housewife Elizabeth Sutherland in 1984.
The most important prosecution witness, MacPhee's friend Colin Hawkins, has withdrawn his original testimony and now claims that Northern Constabulary police officers forced him to sign a statement he had not read and give false evidence in court.
The case was brought back into the spotlight last year when the Trial and Error television programme for Channel 4 claimed to have found 29 discrepancies in Hawkins' original evidence.
MacPhee's affairs are now being handled by Edinburgh lawyer Robbie Burnett, of Burnett and Christie.
The body of ``Totsie'' Sutherland was discovered on the bedroom floor by her nine-year-old daughter, Jane, when she returned from school on Monday, September 24, 1984. She had been stabbed seven times and her throat had been slit.
The terrible crime sent shockwaves through the sleepy closeknit village of Culbokie, on the Black Isle.
After his arrest the following year, MacPhee, who is from a family of travelling people, claimed that on the day of the murder he and Colin Hawkins had been in Dundonnell, Wester Ross - 90 minutes' drive away from Culbokie - stealing aluminium snowpoles for scrap.
However, during the trial at the High Court at Inverness, Hawkins testified that they had both been in Culbokie that day and that he had watched MacPhee enter Elizabeth Sutherland's cottage.
Several questions have remained unanswered. A red Vauxhall Cavalier was spotted outside Elizabeth Sutherland's cottage around the time of the murder. Police have never established who this belonged to.
An unknown fingerprint was found in the house, but it did not belong to MacPhee. It was not identified at the time of the trial.
A man was seen walking along the road to the house carrying a can of petrol. His identity is still not known.
Now, in a 19-page signed statement Hawkins claims that he gave false evidence and that detectives threatened to charge him with the murder if he did not implicate MacPhee.
Yesterday, Mr Burnett said: ``If all goes to plan, we will petition the Secretary of State for Scotland as soon as I get a clear picture of the case. That should be within a month, But there may be some work to do before that. We have to demonstrate that there is enough fresh evidence to merit an appeal.''
Michael Forsyth can quash the conviction and grant a pardon, refer the case to the Appeal Court or let the conviction stand.
MacPhee is currently in Full Sutton Prison, in York, but has applied to be moved to Saughton Prison, in Edinburgh to be nearer his lawyer during the lengthy appeal process.
The man who led the team which investigated the crime said yesterday that he was confident the conviction was sound.
Retired Detective Superintendent Andrew Lister, formerly head of Northern Constabulary's CID, said: ``There is no doubt about it. The right man is behind bars.''
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