Light The Way: Mum of woman murdered in Glasgow park calls for lighting

The mother of a woman dragged to her death in Glasgow in 2008 is backing the Light The Way campaign to install lights in the city's parks.

Moira Jones was killed in Queen's Park on a summer evening on her way home.

"We all have an instinctive fear of the dark to a lesser or greater degree."

In a letter to the campaign, her mum Bea said: "Glasgow’s parks are much lauded and rightly so.

"I have briefly visited a number of them and have been impressed by them all, but none to me can surpass the biggest and most beautiful Queen’s Park which I love dearly in spite of what happened there to my beloved daughter.

"We all have an instinctive fear of the dark to a lesser or greater degree.

"We cannot see in the dark and so sensibly we avoid dark places. And so that’s the end of the all the healthy pursuits which can be enjoyed in the summer months.

"It need not be the case."

Councillors, campaigners and officers are meeting at an event at Glasgow Caledonian University later to talk about finally making lights in parks a reality.

Bea is not able to go in person because she lives in Staffordshire.

"Her screams were heard by folks walking by - they could see nothing in the dark."

She continued: "Would Moira’s story, my story, have been a different one if there had been lighting on the park roads and walkways?

"I will never know and it is very hard for me even to think about.

"Moira didn’t go for a walk in the park in the dark – she would never have done that, never have taken that kind of risk.

"She was abducted, forced across Queen’s Drive and into the park.

"If there had been lights along that first walkway, which was only a few yards from the perimeter, would that have deterred her assailant from taking her in there at all?

"Would the lights have been a deterrent? And would she have been more likely then to have had help from people on the street?

"Moira was taken across that walkway and held captive under a tree about 10 yards beyond it, only about 20 yards in total from the pavement and the road outside.

"Her screams were heard by folks walking by.

"They could see nothing in the dark.

"They did nothing.

"If there had been lighting would they have had the courage to investigate, to see enough to raise an alert?

"There can be no answers to these questions, but these questions still torture me."

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