A WOMAN has denied a murder suspect's claims she killed six-year-old Alesha MacPhail and planted DNA from a used condom.
Toni McLachlan, the partner of Alesha MacPhail's father, Robert, was giving evidence during the trial of a 16-year-old boy, who denies abducting, raping and murdering Alesha on the Isle of Bute last July.
The teenager, who cannot be named because of his age, has claimed it in a "special defence" that it was Ms McLachlan who killed Alesha.
During cross-examination of her evidence at the High Court in Glasgow, she denied being involved in the death of Alesha, who she said she "loved to pieces".
The naked body of Alesha, from Airdrie in Lanarkshire, was found in the grounds of a disused hotel in Rothesay on the Isle of Bute on the morning of July 2 last year. It was near her grandparents’ seafront home and close to the ferry port where she had arrived a few days previously to spend a three-week summer break with her father and grandparents.
Giving evidence from behind a screen, Ms McLachlan, 18, told the prosecutor, Iain McSporran QC, that she had become aware that the 16-year-old accused was saying that she murdered Alesha on Monday, when the trial began Asked by Mr McSporran how she felt about the accusations, which were put to her on the third morning of the trial, including the allegation that she smeared the contents of a used condom on to Alesha’s body to incriminate the accused, she replied: “Horrible”.
“But she knew that I loved her and that’s what I’m trying to keep in my head. I’m sad, I’m hurt, I’m angry, lots of different emotions,” she said.
Pressed on the “appalling” nature of the injuries inflicted on Alesha, McLachlan broke down and again insisted that she had nothing to do with the killing.
At the time of the murder she was living with Mr MacPhail's parents in a three-bedroom flat on Ardbeg Road, Rothesay.
Ms McLachlan told the court she had dealt cannabis with Mr MacPhail, and had supplied the drug to the accused and his sister.
Under cross-examination, Ms McLachlan repeatedly answered “no” as Brian McConnachie QC for the defence laid out a scenario that involved her previously having a sexual relationship with the accused, and having sexual intercourse with him again on the night of Alesha’s disappearance.
Ms McLachlan told the court that she was not seriously worried by the girl’s disappearance at first. “I just couldn’t believe it, but I didn’t think anything bad because I know Rothesay is a safe place. I’ve stayed there all my life," she said.
Ms McLachlan said she returned a call from the accused at around 6.30am after being woken up to search for Alesha.
Call logs showed he messaged around 9am that day, replying “sorry doesn’t matter”, accompanied by two emojis laughing with tears of joy.
The court heard Ms McLachlan asked him to look out for Alesha after she had gone missing, to which he replied: “Oh damn am sure she’s not went too far.”
She said she first had a “bad feeling” about the call and thought the messages she exchanged with the accused were “dodgy looking”.
Mr McConnachie suggested Ms McLachlan messaged the defendant on the night Alesha went missing asking him to meet for a cigarette.
He then said they had gone to a shed and had sex using a condom she provided, a claim she denied.
Mr McConnachie went on to suggest she then went into Alesha’s room, took her to the woods where she was found, “attacked and brutalised her” and “planted” the accused’s semen from the condom, then murdered her, all of which Ms McLachlan denied.
Detective Constable Gavin McKellar told the court he had gone to the 16-year-old boy's house in the early hours of the morning after Alesha died, following a phone call to Rothesay police station by his mother.
She showed him footage from their home CCTV.
As a result of that, he spoke to the boy who he said presented as confident and co-operative and asked his mother to leave the room while he spoke to the police.
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