Conviction quashed after 9-year battle

Published on 18/02/2005 00:24

A MAN found guilty of killing a bride’s brother outside her wedding reception yesterday won a nine-year legal fight to have his conviction quashed.

The Appeal Court in Edinburgh ruled Stewart Kidd, who was jailed for seven years in 1996, was the victim of a miscarriage of justice.

Mr Kidd and his co-accused, Jamie Green, were found guilty of the culpable homicide of Thomas Blair, who was fatally stabbed outside the Drumgeith Bar in Dundee.

But Lord Kirkwood yesterday said that discrepancies in the evidence of the bride, Pamela Carlyle, Mr Blair’s sister, were sufficient grounds on which to quash the conviction.

The judge, who heard the case with Lady Cosgrove and Lord Philip, said the Crown had failed to disclose statements Mrs Carlyle made to police in the days following the murder in March 1996.

Mr Kidd, who was 19 when he was jailed, lost a previous appeal in 1999. His case was thrown out despite evidence from Green, who did not testify at the trial, that he alone was responsible for the three stab wounds inflicted on Mr Blair.

But Mr Kidd secured a second appeal after his case was taken up by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission.

In his six-page opinion, Lord Kirkwood said that there were serious doubts about the credibility of Mrs Carlyle’s evidence.

Lord Kirkwood also said there was no forensic evidence to link Mr Kidd to the deceased or any knife used in the attack.