A MAN caged for life over the savage murder of a typist 35 years ago returned to court yesterday in a bid to clear his name.
George Beattie spent 15 years in jail after being convicted of stabbing 23-year-old Margaret McLaughlin to death in Carluke, Lanarkshire, in July 1973.
Beattie, then 19, claimed men wearing top hats with mirrors like glam rock band Slade killed Margaret and forced him to watch. A jury took just 35 minutes to convict him.
But Beattie, 54, claims his trial should never have heard statements he was alleged to have made — insisting he was bullied by cops who held his head underwater in a sink.
And a psychology expert yesterday told the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh how Beattie was of low intelligence and was likely to make things up to make his memory appear better than it actually was.
Alibi
Professor Gisli Gudjonsson, 60, said: “Beattie had an abnormal tendency to provide inaccurate information, to add things in that way.”
The case against Beattie depended heavily on his supposed “special knowledge” about the killing. But his legal team claim most of the information was already well known in the area.
And they insist his alibi meant he would only have had ten minutes to kill Margaret, move her body and clean blood off his clothes.
The appeal follows a Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission probe.
The hearing continues.
