Elaine Doyle killer loses bid to overturn conviction
A man who claimed he was the victim of a miscarriage of justice after he was jailed for life for the murder of Elaine Doyle has lost his appeal.
A man who claimed he was the victim of a miscarriage of justice after he was jailed for life for the murder of Elaine Doyle has lost an appeal against his conviction.
A claim that the 21-year minimum term imposed on former soldier John Docherty after he was found guilty of the fatal attack on the teenager 28 years after her body was found was excessive was also rejected.
Scotland's senior judge, the Lord Justice General, Lord Carloway, said: "This was a compelling circumstantial case and the appeal against conviction is refused."
"This was a murder of an innocent 16-year-old girl making her way home along the public streets after a night out in central Greenock. It is a crime of rare callousness and brutality," said the judge.
"As the trial judge records, it caused widespread public revulsion and anxiety and terrible anguish for the deceased's family over many years."
"Although the fact that the appellant was in his early 20s when he committed the crime, and is now 51, is a matter to be taken into account, a significant punishment part was inevitable notwithstanding the appellant's unblemished record since joining the army in the year after the crime," said Lord Carloway.
Docherty, formerly of Dunoon, in Argyll, had denied murdering Elaine during his trial at the High Court in Edinburgh in 2014 after her body was found in a lane near Ardgowan Street, in Greenock, in June 1986.
The strangling victim was found naked with her clothing lying around her after she had left a disco at a Celtic Supporters' Club which Docherty had also been at.
But after he was convicted his lawyers brought an appeal arguing that the verdict was one that no reasonable jury, properly directed, could have returned.
His counsel Donald Findlay QC told judges at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh that "beyond a shadow of a doubt" a miscarriage of justice had occurred.
It was claimed that the police inquiry had been inept and corrupt and that measures to prevent contamination of the crime scene had not been put in place.
Advocate depute John Scullion QC argued that there was a compelling amount of circumstantial evidence which supported the finding of guilty against Docherty, including that DNA from the killer was found which likely came from a primary transfer.
Lord Carloway, who heard the appeal with Lady Dorrian and Lord Bracadale, said: "The starting point, so far as proof of guilt is concerned, must be the DNA findings."
"It is not disputed that the appellants DNA was found on tapings taken from the back of the deceased's body, as well as from her face," said Lord Carloway.
"It is undoubtedly true that there were significant deficiencies, applying modern standards, in the manner in which the crime scene and the recoveries from it were preserved for laboratory examination. The risk of contamination was clear and, in some respects, realised." said the judge.
But the senior judge added: "There is simply no plausible explanation as to how the appellant's DNA could have found its way onto the tapings, other than if the appellant had been the killer and deposited microscopic elements of DNA onto the naked back of the deceased when he strangled her to death."
Lord Carloway said: "This evidence alone would have entitled the jury to convict the appellant."
The judge said that a claim that the DNA could have been transmitted by shouting while Doherty and Elaine were at the supporters' club was "essentially speculative".
Lord Carloway said there were further features of the case which they jury would have been entitled to find as incriminating.
"The pointing out to his workmate of the place where the body was found may be seen as particularly suspicious in so far as he was, for reasons otherwise unexplained, aware of the side of the lane where the body was left to lie," he said.
"There are the deceased's actions, after the event, in not responding to the plea to come forward as being at the club, his change in social activities and decision to join the army. Each of these matters may be capable of innocent explanation, but no such explanation was tendered," said Lord Carloway.