Wife killer Nat Fraser’s appeal put back on track

By JOHN ROBERTSON
Published on 25/10/2012 15:30

An appeal by the twice-convicted wife killer, Nat Fraser, has been put back on track.

Fraser, 53, was found guilty in May of arranging the murder of his estranged wife, Arlene, 33, who vanished from her home in New Elgin, Moray, in 1998.

A jury in 2003 had also returned a guilty verdict and although Fraser lost an appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh, a retrial was allowed when the Supreme Court in London held that his trial had been unfair because evidence was not disclosed to the defence lawyers.

After the second trial, Fraser gave notice of an intention to appeal. However, his grounds of appeal were rejected by a single judge in a “sift” process designed to weed out pointless appeals before they reach court.

That decision was reviewed by three judges and they have said Fraser should be given a hearing in court.

The appeal, on a date to be fixed, will centre on a reference by a witness to Fraser’s personality having changed “after he had been imprisoned for a previous incident.”

Information about an assault by Fraser on his wife a month before she disappeared was being withheld from the jury, but the judge, Lord Bracadale, allowed the trial to continue after warning the jurors to ignore what had been said.