Killer Igoe to appeal against her conviction

Caroline Igoe was told yesterday she would serve a minimum of two decades in prison before even being considered for parole - thought to be a record sentence for a woman in Scotland.

But her mother, Margaret Igoe, said she was convinced the 32-year-old was innocent of murdering Mr Barclay, 26, in the Inch's Hazelwood Grove last January, and would launch an appeal. Her mother also suggested that father-of-one Mr Barclay had committed suicide, despite a jury finding Igoe guilty of murder earlier this month.

Igoe was defended during the trial by solicitor advocate Jim Keegan, QC. A spokeswoman for his Livingston-based firm, Keegan Smith SSC, told the Evening News she was unable to comment on any appeal plans.

But Igoe's 61-year-old mother said: "I'm 100 per cent sure Caroline did not do it. Her daughter was up from 5am; she wouldn't have left her. Caroline would also have had to walk past me to get out the house."

When asked who could have shot Mr Barclay, she said she believed he could have shot himself. She added: "I thought he had been skylarking with the gun."

Igoe reportedly screamed abuse at her co-accused brother Paul Igoe as they were being led away after sentence.

Sentencing Igoe, Lord Bracadale told her: "Martyn Barclay was your boyfriend and very unwisely he kept a handgun. That does not mean he deserved to be shot by it.

"You shot him in a public street in the morning. Just why you did that is not clear, but you have left his family bereft."

Lord Bracadale jailed Igoe for life and told her that it would be up to the parole board when, if ever, she was released.

He added: "Murdering a man by shooting him in the head must carry a long punishment part, in your case, of 20 years."

Mr Keegan, QC, told the court that Igoe continues to deny shooting Mr Barclay and does not accept the jury's verdict.

Paul Igoe, 37, who was cleared of murder but convicted of attempting to cover up the crime by taking away and disposing of the gun, was jailed for six years.

The court heard that Igoe and her late boyfriend rowed over money just hours before she shot him. It emerged that she looked up modelling photographs of herself on a website just minutes after pulling the trigger.

A statement released on behalf of Mr Barclay's family read: "We have had a long and harrowing wait to get justice for Martyn, and while no sentence will ever bring him back, we are satisfied now we know his killer is behind bars."