Split Thread David Gilroy: murder conviction goes to Scottish Review Commission

You can swim in lochs in the summer, especially if the weather has been warm. This was early May though, in 2010. Does anyone in Scotland not remember the winter of 2009-10? It's etched on my memory, I can tell you. Here's a hint.

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That picture was taken in late December 2009. We had temperatures down to -20C that winter. It wasn't just cold, it was a long winter. Anybody going swimming in a loch in early May would have needed their head examined. As well as treatment for hypothermia.
 
Well, he'd have used too little weight. The water would have warmed over the next month or so. She'd have floated up and drifted ashore. But of course that's no guarantee she'd be found. Her bones might now be scattered along the rocky shore of a loch.

More likely she's in a shallow grave, or merely covered with brush, in a wooded area. Dump The Body And Be Thankful... at least for a short time.
 
I think it's virtually certain the body was concealed on land. Water is too difficult unless you have a deserted stretch of deep water, and either a boat or an extremely steep drop into the water. The one really steep drop in that vicinity (the Pass of Brander) is a really busy road.

Also, there's the state of the car. That strongly suggests someone trying to get the body beyond an actual track. It's hard to imagine what he did to break the suspension so badly.

I think he probably went for somewhere he already knew. I also think he may only have thought of it while he was en route, and already past Tyndrum, so he had to double back (one way or the other). Otherwise, why not go via the Rest and Be Thankful in the first place, so that he lost as little time as possible, and was never tracked to somewhere not on a reasonable route from Edinburgh to Lochgilphead?
 
Here's the spot I was talking about. Commandlinegamer mentioned it earlier. The road is actually up on stilts above the loch. Anything going in there with sufficient weight and sufficiently well secured isn't going to be found in a hurry.

https://goo.gl/maps/EGPi9

One does wonder, given other disappearances. Someone who was well-equipped and had the thing all planned out, and a dark night. (Or more likely, early summer's dawn which can be 3 am with reasonable visibility.) But although it's only about five miles from Gilroy's direct route to Lochgilphead, I don't think that's what happened to Suzanne Pilley. Not on a late spring afternoon, with a murderer who wasn't equipped with concrete wellingtons.
 
Rolfe said:
Here's the spot I was talking about. Commandlinegamer mentioned it earlier. The road is actually up on stilts above the loch. Anything going in there with sufficient weight and sufficiently well secured isn't going to be found in a hurry.

https://goo.gl/maps/EGPi9

One does wonder, given other disappearances. Someone who was well-equipped and had the thing all planned out, and a dark night. (Or more likely, early summer's dawn which can be 3 am with reasonable visibility.) But although it's only about five miles from Gilroy's direct route to Lochgilphead, I don't think that's what happened to Suzanne Pilley. Not on a late spring afternoon, with a murderer who wasn't equipped with concrete wellingtons.
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No, he'd have needed so much weight that he couldn't have gotten her over the rail without a winch. That's what these people don't realize. They lash on a couple of concrete blocks and call it good, and the body floats up three weeks later.

The real crime in that photo is how you are clear-cutting your beautiful hills and causing all kinds of erosion and water pollution. But we do it too, alas.
 
I'm assuming some sort of mechanical help - bear in mind this is a hypothetical scenario, not a suggestion about what Gilroy could have done. He definitely couldn't have done that.

Where I work we regularly move carcasses of over 800 kg. I can do it, with the right tools. They arrive in a discreet van, that has all the needful installed inside. Borrow something like that for a night, and you're sorted.

And we need some more roads like that, not fewer. People live here, it's not a theme park. We've still got plenty untouched.
 
Rolfe said:
I'm assuming some sort of mechanical help - bear in mind this is a hypothetical scenario, not a suggestion about what Gilroy could have done. He definitely couldn't have done that.

Where I work we regularly move carcasses of over 800 kg. I can do it, with the right tools. They arrive in a discreet van, that has all the needful installed inside. Borrow something like that for a night, and you're sorted.

And we need some more roads like that, not fewer. People live here, it's not a theme park. We've still got plenty untouched.
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I think 400 pounds of cement or rock is pretty much mob spec, what it takes to keep a corpse stationary on the bottom.

My complaint is not with the road. I was looking at the denuded hills on the other side of the lake. It reminds me of what I see around here. It causes massive soil erosion that silts up streams and kills our salmon spawn. But maybe I'm looking at a windswept hill rather than a stump farm. I can't really tell.
 
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I can't see anything untoward on the other side of the loch. That's a particularly steep slope, and I wouldn't expect any more trees on it. I don't think anyone has been doing anything particularly reprehensible in that place.

Of course the wider subject of the mediaeval deforestation of Scotland, the unnatural wilderness of the Flow Country, the inability of trees to gain a foothold while deer are encouraged and over-stocked, and the monoculture of Sitka spruce that has destroyed large tracts of the country, is a huge subject and we could go on about it elsewhere. That hillside isn't an example though.
 
Continuing the tangent for a moment: I've been travelling that road on and off nearly 40 years and it's been like that as long as I can remember. There are ongoing efforts to replant a variety of native species in different parts of Scotland, though.

A recent TV programme featured one glen where it compared the situation now, and thirty years ago, as a tribute to the broadcaster and climber Tom Weir who featured in a long running series walking all over Scotland. It commented that today's foresters would not live to see the peak of the fruits of their labour, and what was done three decades had barely begun to appear.

A final thought for the watery hypothesis. If it were not for the vegetation, one might consider that the damage to the suspension could be caused by excessive weight in car, such as a body and other items needed to make it sink.
 
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I don't see how a body can be excessive weight in a car. I mean, they're designed to carry people. Do you mean the positioning would make a difference? And he was improvising like mad - he even had to get bin bags from the school. What sort of weights might he have acquired that would be worth carting around in a landscape full of whacking great rocks?

It's not just the broken suspension though, it was the vegetation under the car. It all feels like a land disposal.

I also can't see any terribly promising bodies of water that were accessible from the route he would have taken. Unless he ducked up to Loch Sloy, and his mobile somehow pinged the mast at Rest and Be Thankful from there.

The spot in the Pass of Brander you mentioned has always seemed to me to be a very tempting place to lose a body (I'd actually forgotten about it until you pointed it out this time though!). But even if you were well-equipped you couldn't do it in the daytime on that busy road. Most lochs have roads round them, and are as overlooked as hell. And he'd have needed a boat, short of being able to access the drop in the Pass of Brander.

I think the cops were right about the Rest and Be Thankful area, if the mobile pings were real. The fact that he seems to have gone back that way (and lost a lot of time on his return journey too) seems to confirm that. There's really no body of water in that area that could be usable. Loch Restil is way too overlooked - by the viewpoint, as well as the road. Somewhere up a bad forest track. Maybe even off the Hell's Glen.

Alternatively, somewhere in Glen Aray between Tyndrum and Inveraray, and then what, he went to the Rest and Be Thankful to lay a false trail? Don't think so somehow.
 
Gaz said:
Anyone have any updates on this character ? Has the sccrc been too busy wi Lockerbie lately
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Welcome to the forum!

I haven't heard anything about this case recently. But as far as I know the SCCRC didn't even look at the Lockerbie evidence. They made a political decision. So they should have had plenty time to look at the Gilroy evidence, such as it is.
 
Thanks for that Rolfe , It was just that in my experience with juries etc and this type of thing my lawyer always told me that no news is good news , and the longer it takes the better , Just hope this isn't the case with this scumbag
 
No idea. In my opinion he's as guilty as hell but if the prosecution withheld evidence that might have established reasonable doubt, he should go free. It's time these scumbags in the COPFS realised that you can't just fit people up at will, even if you really do think they did it.
 
Well the crown are insisting their duty of disclosure was fulfilled , lets hope it was , I think in this case it was far from a fit up but yes I understand what you mean .
 
It's not obvious what sort of material non-disclosure there might be in this case. Maybe the police discovered just before the trial that she was alive and well and running a guesthouse in Clackmannan but were too embarrassed to cough that up. But, even if that were so, I fail to see how it could disturb such a sound conviction.
 
Seems strange as well that its only his immediate family that are of the opinion he is innocent , wouldn't surprise me one little bit if his wife was involved in moving the body , but i think they are clutching at straws now , I was in court , didn't need a jury to decide if he was guilty .
 
I have always been surprised by the paucity of CCTV and mobile phone mast information in this case. Given that he apparently didn't switch off his mobile phone (or if he did, he only switched it on when he was actually engaged in the detour to the Rest And Be Thankful but not to make a call, either way, whatamaroon), why only one ping on that single tower?

What about other CCTV cameras? It's almost inevitable he would have passed others. Was there footage from cameras he should have passed if he did what the police claimed, which categorically didn't show his car?

As I said some way up-thread, I think the police have more information that they didn't disclose. I think they concealed it from Gilroy during the investigation in the hope that he'd come up with a story which they could then disprove by producing more CCTV and/or mobile phone mast data. I think they should have disclosed it at trial, if I understand the law correctly. The COPFS have a long and inglorious history of non-disclosure, q.v. Lockerbie.

I think Gilroy wants to trawl through this to see if he can find some sort of get-out. I think the COPFS behave so badly as regards non-disclosure that it would serve them bloody well right if they lost a conviction because of it.

I'd be very sad if this led to Suzanne Pilley's body never being found, though. I think the only real chance of its being found during her parents' lifetimes is if Gilroy realises he has no chance of acquittal and he'll be released a lot sooner if he confesses to where he hid her.
 
What sort of disclosure of CCTV film or cell phone pings could help him? The mere fact of non-disclosure isn't enough. It has to be something that might have made a favourable difference to his trial.
 
But surely then it could backfire on him if they have footage of him or pings in the areas of interest , if that's the case ?? . Im with you Rolfe regarding mr and mrs pilley , but Gilroy being the arrogant twat that he is will never reveal where the body is , If I had my way id have a couple of select fellow cons locked in his cell with him in shotts nick , and told to press his buzzer when ready to disclose when he disposed of the body , im sure it wouldn't take long and there would be no shortage of volunteers for the job .
 
anglolawyer said:
What sort of disclosure of CCTV film or cell phone pings could help him? The mere fact of non-disclosure isn't enough. It has to be something that might have made a favourable difference to his trial.
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Have you seen his appeal judgement? This isn't a guy who needs a strong case before he's prepared to make an application.

All we know is that he's applied to the SCCRC. That doesn't in any way imply that he has a tenable case. More pertinently though, I think his point is that since he doesn't know the contents of the surveillance information the police are withholding, then he can't know whether it can help him or not.

I'd take a modest bet that the SCCRC will tell him to take a hike.
 
Gaz said:
But surely then it could backfire on him if they have footage of him or pings in the areas of interest , if that's the case ?? . Im with you Rolfe regarding mr and mrs pilley , but Gilroy being the arrogant twat that he is will never reveal where the body is , If I had my way id have a couple of select fellow cons locked in his cell with him in shotts nick , and told to press his buzzer when ready to disclose when he disposed of the body , im sure it wouldn't take long and there would be no shortage of volunteers for the job .
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If they had more pings or footage on him that were incriminating or strengthened their case, I think they'd have revealed them at the trial. It's possible they have some, or perhaps the absence of data where data there should be, that might be massaged into some semblance of a case for the defence.

Bear in mind we haven't actually seen a case for the defence yet. His defence has consisted of "you can't prove I did it". I wonder if what he actually did wasn't quite what the police thought he did, and knowing that, he thinks he might be able to pick some holes in the police scenario.
 
Another one of his points is that all the defence witnesses weren't called , that's down to his lawyer then and not for the crown , and other is about a blue car being unaccounted for ,given the time and location id be surprised NOT to see a blue car , just hope he is farting against the wind and the sccrc tell him in no uncertain terms where to go
 
Gaz said:
Another one of his points is that all the defence witnesses weren't called , that's down to his lawyer then and not for the crown , and other is about a blue car being unaccounted for ,given the time and location id be surprised NOT to see a blue car , just hope he is farting against the wind and the sccrc tell him in no uncertain terms where to go
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Where does the info come from about these points of his?
 
It seems as im new to this site im not allowed to put up a link to the Gilroy website , but google gilroyfamily and you should come across it , or david Gilroy latest , makes good reading
 
Rolfe said:
If they had more pings or footage on him that were incriminating or strengthened their case, I think they'd have revealed them at the trial. It's possible they have some, or perhaps the absence of data where data there should be, that might be massaged into some semblance of a case for the defence.

Bear in mind we haven't actually seen a case for the defence yet. His defence has consisted of "you can't prove I did it". I wonder if what he actually did wasn't quite what the police thought he did, and knowing that, he thinks he might be able to pick some holes in the police scenario.
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I think you may well have a point there , the police know he did it , but its not quite the way they think it happened , and that may well or rather probably would apply to the burial site .
 
Imagine you are accused of something you are guilty of, but the police have the modus operandi wrong. You didn't actually do what they have accused you of doing. Don't you think you might try to find a crack in there you could lever apart to your advantage?

Just as an example. Suppose he found somewhere in Glen Aray to hide the body, and was never anywhere near the Rest And Be Thankful or Hell's Glen. He knows the cops think he was in Hell's Glen. He may harbour some hopes of proving that he wasn't there, if he can get hold of further surveillance data. His problem is of course that he can't reveal where he actually was. He hopes simply to prove he wasn't where the cops think he was. Thus, he hopes, the Cown has no longer proved its case against him. (I'm not saying this is it, it's just an example.)

Also bear in mind that anyone can submit an application to the SCCRC. You don't have to ask permission. The fact that he has submitted such an application does not imply that there's any merit in it. If you look at his first appeal, you'll see that looking for an argument with actual merit doesn't seem to be a high priority with this guy.

I'm simply trying to guess what line he's trying to pursue. Not advancing it as a line that has a chance of success. On the other hand if the COPFS really has withheld pertinent evidence, pass the popcorn.
 
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Rolfe said:
Imagine you are accused of something you are guilty of, but the police have the modus operandi wrong. You didn't actually do what they have accused you of doing. Don't you think you might try to find a crack in there you could lever apart to your advantage?

Just as an example. Suppose he found somewhere in Glen Aray to hide the body, and was never anywhere near the Rest And Be Thankful or Hell's Glen. He knows the cops think he was in Hell's Glen. He may harbour some hopes of proving that he wasn't there, if he can get hold of further surveillance data. His problem is of course that he can't reveal where he actually was. He hopes simply to prove he wasn't where the cops think he was. Thus, he hopes, the Cown has no longer proved its case against him. (I'm not saying this is it, it's just an example.)

Also bear in mind that anyone can submit an application to the SCCRC. You don't have to ask permission. The fact that he has submitted such an application does not imply that there's any merit in it. If you look at his first appeal, you'll see that looking for an argument with actual merit doesn't seem to be a high priority with this guy.

I'm simply trying to guess what line he's trying to pursue. Not advancing it as a line that has a chance of success. On the other hand if the COPFS really has withheld pertinent evidence, pass the popcorn.
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Is he acting in person or does he have a lawyer? I doubt any self respecting lawyer would be submitting hopeless appeals. And so what if he proves he was in Glen Garry when they thought he was in Glen Ross? How does that change anything?
 
I think he has a lawyer, although I'm not 100% sure. There is a flaw in your reasoning. You seem to be assuming what is not in evidence, that it is not possible in Scotland to find a lawyer who is not self-respecting.

No, he doesn't intend to prove where he was. He hopes (I believe) to prove that he wasn't in the Rest And Be Thankful area. Thus (he hopes) introducing sufficient reasonable doubt to overturn the conviction, as the police represented to the court that he had been in the Rest And Be Thankful area (where he had no cause to be on the route he was taking) and so this was where he'd stashed the body. If he knows he wasn't there, he may be smarting at the injustice of the conviction on that account, even if he was actually burying her somewhere in Glen Aray.

I think he hopes to achieve disclosure of a load more CCTV and phone records, and then he hopes to trawl through these for discrepancies and anomalies that might support his case.

Bear in mind this is just a guess. I think it's something along those lines but I might be wrong.

(By the way, did you ever read the Lockerbie judgement as you said you were going to?)
 
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