Fraser v HM Advocate

On 29 January 2003, Nat Fraser was convicted by a majority verdict at the High Court at Edinburgh, before Lord Mackay of Drumadoon and a jury, of the murder of his wife Arlene.

[1] The cornerstone of the Crown's case against Fraser was that on 7 May he had returned certain rings from the dead body of his wife, 9 days after she vanished, in order to foster the appearance that she had decided to leave of her own volition.

It emerged that two police constables had given witness statements to the Crown before the trial to the effect that they had seen jewellery, including the rings, in the Fraser's house on 28 and 29 April.

Fraser's two grounds of appeal were that the new evidence had a vital bearing on the jury's verdict, and that its non-disclosure to the defence had caused a miscarriage of justice.

Both men were accused of "unbelievable ignorance" by former Principal Advocate Depute at the Crown Office, Brian McConnachie[15] and for "interfering in the independence of the judiciary and for making "highly personal" attacks on senior legal figures" by Richard Keen, dean of the Faculty of Advocates, and Cameron Ritchie, president of the Law Society of Scotland.

[16] Legal commentator Joshua Rozenberg claimed that Salmond had made an "extraordinary personal attack" against Deputy President Lord Hope of Craighead, as part of a Scottish nationalist agenda.