Elaine Doyle Killer Takes Step Forward in Attempt to Overturn Conviction

The former soldier jailed for life for murdering Elaine Doyle more than 28 years ago is to argue that no reasonable jury could have returned a guilty verdict against him in an appeal. Judges at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh agreed to allow the challenge over John Docherty's murder conviction to be argued "without limitation". A previous decision by a single judge had allowed the ground of appeal to proceed but in a limited way. Docherty's defence counsel Donald Findlay QC argued against that ruling and Lady Paton, sitting with Lord Drummond Young and Lady Clark of Calton, agreed that the ground could be heard in full. It advances the proposition that the verdict was one which "no reasonable jury, properly directed, could have returned". Mr Findlay told the judges during a brief hearing: "It was a long, complicated, anxious case." Docherty (50) from Dunoon, in Argyll, was jailed for life last year and ordered to serve at least 21 years in jail after he was found guilty of murdering Elaine in June 1986 near her home in Ardgowan Street, in Greenock. Docherty had denied the murder charge, but a jury at the High Court in Edinburgh found him guilty of strangling the teenager, who had earlier been at a disco. Years after the death of the 16-year-old DNA evidence unknown in crime scene investigations at the time was found on her naked body providing a link to Docherty who later provided a sample. No date has yet been fixed for hearing Docherty's appeal against the murder conviction.