World's End murders
| HM Advocate v Sinclair (2007) | |
|---|---|
.svg) |
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| Court | High Court of Justiciary |
| Full case name | Her Majesty's Advocate v Angus Robertson Sinclair |
| Decided | 10 September 2007 |
| Court membership | |
| Judge(s) sitting | Lord Clarke |
| HM Advocate v Sinclair (2014) | |
|---|---|
|
|
| Court | High Court of Justiciary |
| Full case name | Her Majesty's Advocate v Angus Robertson Sinclair |
| Decided | 14 November 2014 |
| Case history | |
| Prior action(s) | HM Advocate v Sinclair (2007) |
| Related action(s) | Double Jeopardy (Scotland) Act 2011 |
| Court membership | |
| Judge(s) sitting | Lord Matthews |
The World's End Murders is the colloquial name given to the murder of two teenage girls, Christine Eadie, 17, and Helen Scott, 17, in Edinburgh, in October 1977. The case is so named because both victims were last seen alive leaving the World's End Pub in Edinburgh's Old Town. The only living person to stand trial accused of the murders, Angus Sinclair, was acquitted in 2007 in controversial circumstances. Following the amendment of the law of double jeopardy, which would have prevented his retrial, Sinclair was re-tried in October 2014 and convicted of both murders on 14 November 2014. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 37 years, the longest sentence by a Scottish court, meaning he would be 106 years old when he can be considered for release on parole.
In addition to Eadie and Scott, Sinclair also pleaded guilty to culpable homicide of his eight-year-old neighbour Catherine Reehill in Glasgow in 1961, when he was sixteen, and given another life sentence in 2001 for the 1978 murder of 17-year-old Mary Gallacher on a footpath in Glasgow. He is thought to have also killed four other women between 1977 and 1978; all within a seven-month period of the murders of Eadie and Scott.
On the night of 15 October 1977, Christine Eadie and Helen Scott were seen leaving the World's End Pub at closing time, the final stop on a Saturday night pub crawl. The following day, Christine's naked body was discovered in Gosford Bay, East Lothian, by hill walkers. Helen's body was found unclothed six miles away from Christine's, in a corn-stubble field. Both girls had been beaten, gagged, tied, raped and strangled. No attempt had been made to conceal their bodies.
In late 1977, Lothian and Borders Police conducted a high-profile criminal investigation, collating a list of over 500 suspects and taking over 13,000 statements from members of the public. Despite their efforts, they were unable to identify a culprit. The case commanded widespread attention in the Scottish media at the time, and a photo-booth picture of the two girls was used by police in their appeals for information.
At the time, the media reported that several witnesses had told police they had seen Helen Scott and Christine Eadie sitting near the public telephone in the bar, talking with two men. Neither of these men have been traced or since presented themselves to police. Speculation that the killings had been the work of two men was heightened when it was revealed that the knots used to tie the girls' hands behind their backs were of different types.
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