The precedents: Murder trials without the victim’s body remain a rarity in Scotland

MURDER trials without bodies are rare. Yesterday’s guilty verdict means the Nat Fraser trial is among only a handful of recent murder convictions where there has been an absence of a body.

In the case of Arlene Fraser, friends and family said the devoted other would never have abandoned her two young children. She was going about her daily business as normal on Tuesday 28 April 1998 – the day she vanished. She had an appointment with a solicitor to discuss a divorce later that day but never made it.

Alex Prentice QC, prosecuting, told the jury the case was unusual given the fact Mrs Fraser’s body has never been found. On the evidence, it was “quite an easy task” to conclude she was dead, he said.

Last month, David Gilroy was jailed for 18 years for the murder of his former lover Suzanne Pilley. The 38-year-old book-keeper disappeared two years ago after making her usual journey to work in Edinburgh. Her body has never been found.

In 2010, Thomas Pryde, from Scone, Perthshire, admitted battering his friend to death before burying his body in a field in Errol ten years earlier. Pryde pleaded guilty to culpable homicide and was jailed for ten years even though the body has never been found.