Man freed as judges quash conviction for murder

Published on Wednesday 1 April 2009 22:10

A MAN who served seven years of a life sentence for murder was freed by appeal judges yesterday, after it emerged that mistaken scientific evidence had been given at his trial.

Craig McCreight, 37, smiled to his mother in the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh as he was returned to prison to collect his belongings, before being released.

A jubilant Sylvia McCreight, 64, said: "I am just happy he is free."

Mr McCreight was convicted of poisoning his partner, Yvonne Davidson, 34, with chloroform at their home in Fairinsfell, Broxburn, West Lothian, but the appeal court heard that an arithmetical error in a laboratory had suggested the amount of chloroform in her liver was 1,000 times the actual level.

Lords Nimmo Smith, Clarke and Hardie ruled unanimously that Mr McCreight's conviction should be quashed. The judges were asked by the Crown to hold a retrial, a move opposed by Mr McCreight's solicitor-advocate, Jim Keegan. They decided, on a split vote, to refuse the request.