Grandparents anger at calls to move Alesha MacPhail memorial bench

The grandparents of Alesha MacPhail have slammed locals who want a memorial bench moved – over claims it’s scaring children into thinking they’ll be murdered.

Alesha MacPhail

Grandmother Mary Lochrane was outraged at the news people wanted the bench in Rothesay, Isle of Bute, to be moved.

It comes after claims it was frightening children emerged at a community council meeting. The pink bench, featuring unicorn designs and Alesha’s name, is situated at Children’s Corner on Rothesay’s promenade.

Alesha was abducted, raped and murdered by schoolboy Aaron Campbell, then 16, on 2 July last year. Campbell was sentenced to 27 years in prison at the High Court in Glasgow in March.

At a meeting of the Bute Community Council last month chairwoman Marlene Hill said some island residents had requested that the bench be moved “somewhere slightly out of town.”

Mary Lochrane raged at those who complained describing them as “sad sick pathetic people”.

And Toni McLachlan, the girlfriend of Alesha’s father Robert, vowed to chain herself to the schoolgirl’s memorial bench before letting it be moved