ANGRY women screamed at Mr Charles McGregor yesterday after he was

freed, the charge of murdering his prostitute wife found not proven.

As friends shepherded 29-year-old Mr McGregor from the High Court in

Glasgow, women shouted: ''You murdering bastard'', and ''You're going to

get it.''

The jury took three hours to find the charge that Mr McGregor battered

his wife Karen, 26, with an unknown object and strangled her in their

home on April 18 last unanimously not proven.

Another charge that he hid her body in shrubbery in a car park in

Glasgow's Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre and attempted to

defeat the ends of justice was also found not proven unanimously.

During the 13-day trial, the court heard that it was six months after

the body was found before police arrested Mr McGregor, of Maukinfauld

Road, Tollcross, Glasgow.

They had been treating her death as a prostitute murder by a client.

There were striking similarities to the murder of another prostitute.

Diane McInally, 23, had been found almost naked in Glasgow's Pollok

Park before Mrs McMcGregor was murdered, and she also had head injuries

and had been strangled.

Mr McMcGregor had repeatedly pleaded: ''Find my wife's killer,'' in

newspapers, but he was arrested after Mr Joseph McGinty, 21, of Beattock

Street, Parkhead, was picked up by police on a warrant. Mr McGinty then

made about five different statements involving Mr McGregor with the

murder of his wife.

Mr McGinty, described by the Judge, Lord McCluskey, as ''a master of

fiction'', claimed he had gone to the house and found Mrs Karen McGregor

lying dead on a couch. She had face injuries.

Two other witnesses, Mr Samuel Main and Mr Derek McNaught, both 21,

said in recorded police interviews that Mr McGregor had killed his wife,

but in court they retracted their statements, saying they had told lies

to the police.

Mr Main was brought back to court and said he would rather serve five

years for perjury than send Mr McGregor to jail for life for a murder he

did not do.

The Crown had claimed that Mr McGregor, a drug addict, had sent his

wife to work as a prostitute that night to get money for drugs and had

killed her when she returned.

Mr William Totten, prosecuting, said the accused had tried to make it

appear she had been killed by one of her clients.

Mr Ian Hamilton, QC, defending, said the Crown case depended on Mr

McGinty, who was a proven liar.

The counsel said it was a ''quantum leap'' to say that a drug addict

could make up a plot to make everyone think his wife had been killed by

a client.

During the trial Mrs McGregor's invalid mother sat in court in her

wheelchair.

At the end of the case Mr McGinty was called into court to explain why

he did not attend after being re-cited to appear by both Crown and

defence.

His counsel, Mr Sean Murphy, said Mr McGinty had left home after a row

with his mother, but had phoned her on Sunday and was told police were

looking for him and he was due in court on Monday.

Mr Murphy said that as Mr McGinty approached court on Monday morning

he was seen by friends of the accused who chased him. Eventually he went

to a public house near the court, saw some friends, and they called the

police who took him safely into the court.

Lord McCluskey said that although Mr McGinty was a master of fiction,

he would not

take any further action and

discharged him from the

court.