Nat Fraser held as judge orders retrial

A RETRIAL of businessman Nat Fraser has been allowed - and he will stay in prison until he goes before a second jury, possibly by the turn of the year.

Fraser, 52, remained impassive, taking notes in the dock at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh, as it was announced that the Crown could put him on trial again for the murder of his estranged wife, Arlene, 33, in 1998.

Her sister, Carol Gillies, was among those on the public benches.

The Crown has two months to serve a new indictment on Fraser, and a trial date would then have to be set.

But the process could be lengthened because, although his lawyers failed to persuade the appeal judges that authority for a retrial should be refused, it would still be open to them to try to prevent a new trial by further legal submissions.

Reporting restrictions applied to yesterday's hearing, as Lord Hamilton, the Lord Justice-General, sitting with Lords Reed and Carloway, formally quashed Fraser's conviction that followed his first trial in 2003 and which the Supreme Court in London had held last month should be overturned.

After the Supreme Court judgment, the Crown sought permission to pursue a fresh prosecution of Fraser.

"The decision of the (appeal] court is to grant the Crown's motion. We shall accordingly set aside the verdict of the trial court, quash the conviction and grant authority to bring a new prosecution," Lord Hamilton said.

Mrs Fraser disappeared in April 1998, a few weeks after she and her husband, a fruit and vegetable wholesaler, separated. It was feared she had been killed, but a massive police investigation failed to find a body.

Five years later, Fraser was put on trial, alongside co-accused Hector Dick and Glenn Lucas. The charge was dropped against the other two early in the trial, and Dick gave evidence for the prosecution.

The Crown's case against Fraser was not that he had committed the murder himself, but that he had arranged for his wife to be killed. He was convicted by the jury, given a mandatory life sentence and told he would serve at least 25 years before he could apply for parole.

In 2006, Fraser was freed pending an appeal, after it was discovered evidence about Mrs Fraser's engagement, wedding and eternity rings had not been disclosed to the defence. At the end of the submissions to the appeal court, Fraser's bail was withdrawn and he was returned to jail after 19 months of freedom. Later, the court announced its decision, that Fraser had not suffered a miscarriage of justice.

Fraser's lawyers were denied leave to appeal to the Supreme Court, but the court accepted an application made directly to it and it ruled Fraser had been denied a fair trial, and that his conviction should be quashed.

Part of the Crown's case at the trial had been that the rings were found in the bathroom of the house in Smith Street, New Elgin, Moray, on 7 May, 1998, after Fraser had visited the house. It was said they had not been there when Mrs Fraser disappeared.

The return of the rings, prosecutor Alan Turnbull QC (now the judge, Lord Turnbull) told the jury, was the cornerstone of the prosecution's case. He suggested Fraser had removed the rings from the dead body and put them in the bathroom to make it look as though his wife had decided to walk away from her life.

After the trial, it emerged the Crown had had evidence suggesting the rings were in the house on the night of 28-29 April, when Mrs Fraser had been reported missing. The information had not been disclosed to either the prosecutor at the trial, or to Fraser's defence team.

In the Supreme Court's judgment, Lord Hope said: "It was information that ought to have been given to the defence, and the failure to do this was a breach of the appellant's… right [to a fair trial]."