Lynda Spence trial: Jury set to deliver verdict

• Jury resumes deliberations as verdict could be delivered today on Lynda Spence killing

• Colin Coats and Philip Wade deny torturing and murdering Ms Spence in 2011

• Pair accused of cutting off Ms Spence’s thumb, burning her hand and striking her with golf club before killing her

Colin Coats and Philip Wade, both 42, are accused of torturing and killing the missing financial adviser last seen in Glasgow in April 2011.

The verdicts on the pair, who deny assaulting her to obtain financial details before murdering her, could be decided today.

Prosecutors claim the men cut off Ms Spence’s thumb, burned her hand with an iron and hit her with a golf club.

The body of the 27-year-old has never been found.

The sentencing of two men who admitted guarding the missing financial advisor is also expected today.

David Parker, 38, and Paul Smith, 47, admit assaulting her by hitting her with a golf club, burning her hand, cutting off her thumb and failing to get medical help.

Parker and Smith were originally charged with her murder but were cleared after pleading guilty to a reduced charge of assault and holding the businesswoman against her will.

It is alleged that friends Coats and Wade abducted Ms Spence on April 14 2011 and taped her to a chair in an attic at a flat in West Kilbride, Ayrshire.

They held her there for a fortnight as they tried to force her to reveal details of financial deals, prosecutors claim.

The lengthy trial has heard evidence that Ms Spence had a hand in deals involving faked Danish bearer bonds and a land sale at Stansted Airport.

Coats, who provided short-term loans to Ms Spence, held her responsible for losing his money and duping him over deals, according to prosecutors.

When it became clear that she was continuing to mislead them, Coats and Wade murdered her and disposed of her body, the court was told.

Parker and Smith claimed they were offered money to guard Ms Spence at the flat.

Giving evidence at the trial, Coats said Ms Spence arranged to stay in the Meadowfoot Road flat herself.

The accused said she wanted to lie low because of threats from former business associates over an unpaid debt and disappeared from the property one day when Smith and Parker were not there.

A spot of blood identified as Ms Spence’s found on the linoleum floor at the foot of the bath could have been consistent with her ordinary use of the bathroom, Coats’s lawyer has suggested.

The defence said the Crown failed to prove that Ms Spence is even dead, leading evidence from witnesses who claimed to have seen her after she was allegedly killed.

Coats and Wade each face a charge of abducting, assaulting, robbing and murdering Ms Spence, and a second charge of clearing up after the alleged crime in an attempt to defeat the ends of justice.

Coats is accused of a further three charges relating to extortion and robbery.