Fraser appeals Arlene murder verdict

NAT Fraser, twice found guilty of the murder of his estranged wife, is to challenge his conviction.

Officials at the Justiciary Office in Edinburgh confirmed that Fraser’s legal team lodged a notice of intention to appeal today.

It could be months before a court hearing is fixed and Fraser does not have to detail his grounds of appeal at this time.

But during his latest trial at the High Court in Edinburgh judge Lord Bracadale made two decisions which could be open to challenge.

A witness revealed that Fraser had been in prison before the disappearance of wife Arlene, 33, who disappeared from her Elgin home in April 1998.

And an investigation was ordered after complaints that a member of the jury had supposedly betrayed a bias against Fraser at an early stage.

In both cases Lord Bracadale ruled that the trial should continue.

After more than five weeks of evidence and speeches a jury decided that fruit and veg wholesaler Fraser, 53, had paid a hit-man to murder his wife.

They rejected Fraser’s alibi - that he was on his delivery rounds that day - and his claim that former friend, farmer Hector Dick, 56, of Mosstowie near Elgin was the real killer.

Fraser was jailed for life and cannot ask to be freed on parole for at least 17 years.

Fraser was first convicted to murdering mum-of-two Arlene in January 2003 but continued to protest his innocence.

The Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh confirmed his conviction, but Fraser successfully went over the heads of Scottish judges and the UK Supreme Court ruled that he had suffered a miscarriage of justice.

The successful appeal hinged on claims that key evidence relating to the mystery reappearance of Arlene’s rings in the bathroom of her Smith Street home, nine days after she vanished, had been kept from his defence lawyers.

After the Supreme Court decision, which led to a political storm over the independence of the Scottish legal system, prosecutors demanded a new trial. A second jury reached the same conclusion as the first jury, nine years ago.

Both juries heard that Fraser was seething with jealousy because he suspected his vivacious trendy wife might have a lover. He was also worried that divorce might mean Arlene walking away with a large chunk of his money.

“If you are not going to live with me, you are not going to be living with anybody,” he fumed.

Sentencing Fraser, Lord Bracadale told him: “The evidence indicated that at some point before April 28 1998 you arranged for someone to kill your wife, Arlene, and dispose of her body.

“Thus you instigated in cold blood the pre-meditated murder of your wife and mother of your children, then aged ten and five years.”

Lord Bracadale continued: “The murder and disposal of the body must have been carried out with ruthless efficiency for there is not a trace of Arlene Fraser from that day to this and her bereft family continue to live with no satisfactory knowledge of what happened to her remains.”