Killers Lose Appeal Over Western Isles Murder

Two killers who were found guilty of the first murder on the Western Isles in more than 40 years have lost appeals against their convictions.

Jonathan MacKinnon and Stefan Millar were jailed for life and ordered to serve at least 18 years in jail before they can be considered for release for the slaying of 16-year-old Liam Aitchison.

Both had denied the murder of the teenager, from South Uist, who was beaten and stabbed in an attack in November 2011 before his body was found at a derelict property at Steinish on Lewis.

Mr Aitchison had socialised with Millar and MacKinnon after he started living in Stornoway.

The three had worked in the fishing industry.

MacKinnon had lashed out at the youth after a bottle of after shave fell out of the teenager's pocket .

Witnesses said the two men had told them that the teenager was okay and they had last seen him headed for a friend's house.

About two weeks after his girlfriend and other friends last saw him alive his body was found at a derelict RAF building near Stornoway airport.

He had been repeatedly stabbed and his head had been stamped on. He suffered 20 stab wounds to his head, neck and torso.

Millar and MacKinnon were both aged 22 when they were convicted of the crime after a trial and the sentencing judge, Lord Kinclaven, told them: "This was the brutal murder of a young man who was only 16 years of age."

MacKinnon, whose address was given as Lossiemouth Road, Elgin, in Moray, and Millar, whose address was given as Dunabban Road, Inverness, had continued to protest their innocence at the time.

Both killers challenged their convictions at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh arguing that no reasonable jury, properly directed, could have returned guilty findings.

Lady Dorrian, who heard the appeal with Lord Bracadale and Lord Drummond Young, said: "For an appeal of this kind to succeed the court requires to be satisfied that there was no cogent framework of evidence that the jury were entitled to accept as credible and reliable and which would have entitled them to return the verdcit which they did."

"In the present case, it cannot on any view be said that no reasonable jury could have convicted the appellants," she said.

The appeal judge said that taking the prosecution evidence at its highest there was "a rationally persuasive case" against both Millar and MacKinnon which jurors could accept.

Lady Dorrian said the appeal judges would have to be satisfied that the evidence was grossly riddled with deficiencies, contradictions and inconsistencies in such a case.

But she added: "Here there was clearly a satisfactory base line of evidence which would properly entitle the jury to carry out its task."