A COUPLE at the centre of a major police investigation into missing woman Margaret Fleming claim she was in their home on the night police came looking for her.

Eddie Cairney, 75, and Avril Jones, 56, say that the 36-year-old Ms Fleming, who has learning difficulties, became alarmed and ran away because she had a "persecution complex".

The couple, who were Ms Fleming's carers, have spoken out one year after the police raided their home in Inverkip, near Greenock, which marked the beginning of a large-scale probe.

Over the past 12 months, detectives have taken around 500 statements but no-one other than Mr Cairney and Ms Jones has seen Ms Fleming since December 17, 1999, when she was 17.

Former deep-sea driver and hotel owner Mr Cairney said he and Ms Fleming were returning from a trip to Wemyss Bay on October 28, 2016, when they saw police at the house.

He said: “Walking along the footpath we could see all the blue lights flashing and she made to run away. I said ‘Margaret, what’s wrong with you?’ She said, ‘they’re for me, they’re looking for me’.

“I said ‘don’t be silly, it’ll be an accident on that road, no-one’s looking for you’.

“We went in the back door. She was very timid. When I opened the kitchen door to come into the hall there was this lunatic policeman. His voice had broken, he was shrieking ‘where’s Margaret Fleming?’. That was the trigger for her to take off.

“I says ‘there she’s there’ and I turned to get her in the kitchen but she was gone.”

Mr Cairney says the police refused to look for Ms Fleming despite his insistence she had left on foot and could not be far away.

He said: “I told them ‘that’s the way she had to go, if you move quickly you’ll get her’. She went through them. They must have seen her.”

The claim is one of a series made by the couple who have previously refused to speak about what has become one of Scotland’s most mysterious missing person cases.

Mr Cairney and Ms Jones are adamant that no harm has come to Ms Fleming, who they took in after the death of her lawyer father Derek Fleming in 1995. They claim to know she is alive - and have spoken to her recently but offer no evidence to back up the claim.

Standing beside a soiled and bare mattress on which Ms Fleming supposedly slept in the nights before the police turned up, Mr Cairney can produce no personal items of hers.

He said: “She came with a bag and left with the same bag. There’s wee bits of ornaments and stuff but I don’t know what’s hers and what’s not.”

They couple were forced out of their home for over six months while forensic experts dug up the garden, searched the river and examined every inch inside. Police fear something ‘sinister’ may have happened to Ms Fleming.

Mr Cairney said: “We’ve been told repeatedly we’re not suspects but if we weren’t suspects they wouldn’t have dug our garden up.

“I would fight Goliath but I would never harm a wee kid. I’ve been spat on, I’ve been kicked in the supermarket. Margaret is avoiding us, she’s not missing.”

In response to the coupe’s claims, a Police Scotland spokeswoman said: “This case remains a missing person enquiry, and at this time we continue to appeal to people with any information on Margaret’s whereabouts, or anyone who knows her, to come forward to police.

“Officers attended the house on Friday 28 October 2016, and it is then that she was reported missing. Her carers last saw Margaret on Friday 28 October 2016 around 6.20pm.

“A search was carried out both within the house and in the local area to locate her. Officers were assisted by specialist search advisors, police helicopter and dog unit.

“The last independent sighting of Margaret was on December 17, 1999 at a family gathering.

“This, along with facts such as her having no trace of any job, few friends that are contactable, and no evidence of her contact with partner agencies and local services, has led us to become very concerned for her whereabouts and wellbeing.”