‘Clammy’ Gilroy ‘rushing around’ on day Suzanne disappeared

A COLLEAGUE of David Gilroy said that the murder accused seemed “clammy and sweating” and had a graze on his cheek around half-an-hour after bookkeeper Suzanne Pilley was last seen alive.

Kevin White told the High Court in Edinburgh that Gilroy seemed to have been “rushing around” when he bumped into him next to stairs that led down to the garage area from their second-floor office.

Mr White, who said the graze seemed “quite fresh” when he saw his co-worker at around 9.20am, added that Gilroy later asked him about Ms Pilley’s whereabouts when she failed to turn up for work, inquiring: “Where’s your friend today?”

CCTV footage is believed to show Ms Pilley entering Thistle Street at 8.53am on May 4, 2010, the last time she was seen alive.

Earlier at the court yesterday, Gilroy’s wife, Andrea, refused to give evidence against her husband on the sixth day of his murder trial. Mrs Gilroy exercised her legal right not to testify against her husband, who was a colleague of Ms Pilley’s at Infrastructure Management Ltd in the city’s Thistle Street.

The court also heard from Gilroy’s mother, Grace Gilroy, 76, who said her son came to her home in West Pilton Place on the morning Ms Pilley disappeared, between 9am and 10am. She said her son had taken a taxi from his office to her address, and she had then driven him to his Silverknowes home after giving him keys to get in.

Mrs Gilroy said her son told her he needed to retrieve a notebook he had left inside.

Standard Life investment director Jacqueline Low gave evidence yesterday that a man she recognised as Gilroy had left the garage in Thistle Street at around 9.45 that morning.

The 45-year-old said she had just arrived when she heard a man she identified in court as Gilroy come from a door which leads upstairs. Mrs Low said he came through the door, which slammed shut behind him as he walked to another parking bay.

She said Gilroy stopped and said, “I hate it when that happens. I need to go all the way round again”, before leaving through the electronic door she had opened to drive inside. She said his behaviour was “odd”.

Yesterday afternoon, another colleague of Gilroy told how he thought his work-mate was in “shock” on the day Ms Pilley went missing.

Thomas Cooney said he spoke to Gilroy shortly after 9am on May 4, 2010.

Mr Cooney, 46, who works as a regional operations manager at the company, said: “He didn’t look like his normal self. He looked in shock. I think it was his eyes that gave him the appearance of shock. His eyes were glazed and dilated.”

Mr Cooney said Gilroy, who told him he felt unwell, seemed to have a “scratch” on his neck.

On May 8, 2010, Mr Cooney said he met Gilroy for a chat on a bench in Princes Street Gardens.

Mr Cooney said Gilroy admitted he had been in a relationship with Ms Pilley, but it had ended “months earlier”.

Mr Cooney said he later discovered e-mails detailing conversations between Ms Pilley and a man called Steven Clarke while tidying up Gilroy’s desk.

In the messages, Mr Clarke asked the divorcee out on a date – but Ms Pilley responded “NO DON’T CONTACT ME AGAIN”.

One of the charges against Gilroy alleges he created an e-mail account in the name of Steven Clarke and used it to send e-mails to Ms Pilley.

Gilroy, 49, of Silverknowes Brae, has pleaded not guilty to a charge which alleges that he murdered Ms Pilley, 38, by means unknown in Thistle Street or elsewhere in Scotland.

The trial before judge Lord Bracadale continues.

CENTURIES-OLD RIGHT NOT TO TESTIFY

IN declining to give evidence in her husband’s trial Andrea Gilroy may have become one of the last people in Scotland to exercise the centuries-old right not to give evidence against your spouse unless one of you was the victim.

In 2010 the Scottish Parliament abolished this privilege following concerns that a person who was abusing the children of someone with whom they were having a relationship might marry their partner and so make a conviction more difficult.

This change only applies to prosecutions commencing after March 28, 2011, by which time David Gilroy had been indicted for trial, and so the old law applies to him.

FRED MACKINTOSH

• Fred Mackintosh is a practising Advocate and teaching fellow at the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Professional Legal Studies