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Beatrice Greig

Age: 80

Sex: female

Date: 28 Mar 1992

Place: Loughrigg Close, The Meadows, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire

Beatrice Greig was found dead at her home. Her daughter was convicted of killing her twice but successfully appealed following both convictions.

Beatrice Greig was beaten to death with a hammer at her home in Loughrigg Close in The Meadows, Nottingham on 28 March 1992. She was found in a pool of blood in a downstairs room three days after it was thought she had been killed. Her skull had been smashed and her fingers fractured as she had attempted to defend herself by placing her hands to her head.

Her daughter was first convicted of her murder in February 1995 but was released 21 months later following an appeal in December 1996 at which her conviction was quashed on a technicality. It was ruled that the judge had misdirected the jury on important scientific evidence.

It was heard that the prosecution’s case was entirely circumstantial, the prosecution stating that Beatrice Greig's daughter had been motivated by financial greed.

At the trial it was heard that Beatrice Greig's daughter had said that she had used the hammer that had been used to kill her mother to test creaky floorboards although it was noted that the floor at the property was concrete.

Beatrice Greig's daughter had at the time of the murder been living with Beatrice Greig.

She was tried again and convicted in June 1997 but appealed again in 1998 and her conviction was found to be unsafe and she was freed. The jury at the second trial at Birmingham Crown Court, which had been made of seven women and five men, had returned a majority verdict of 11 to 1.

The prosecution said that although the evidence was circumstantial that it showed that no one else could have committed the murder and that the evidence created a picture of Beatrice Greig's daughter 'with a hammer raised over her mother's body'.

Following the second conviction the police said, 'We are just very pleased with the result, it has been a long hard slog. I think now the two jury decisions indicate the proper conviction of Beatrice Greig's daughter. I hate to think how much this has cost, not just in money, but the heartache to a lot of people, especially the family'.

However, Beatrice Greig's daughters husband said, 'There will be an appeal. She's totally and utterly innocent and I have always said that. I will not let it stand at this, there is not a single shred of evidence against her. It’s a desperate disappointment that we will have to go through all this again, but we will not let it rest. We will continue this until such a time as we get justice'.

However, at the second appeal it was heard that the judge had erred when he allowed evidence regarding £16,000 that had been in the daughter's bank account which her father had given her, to be used as evidence, it being stated that the matter created a 'dangerous and prejudicial situation' for the daughter because it left the jury with a 'false route' to the murderer's identity. The appeal judges said that the evidence had been irrelevant to any issue in the case and was as such inadmissible.

They added that they would not have otherwise disturbed the majority verdict of the jury at the second trial if it were not for the matter of the money which they said might have unfairly prejudiced the jury after it was noted that the only motive that the prosecution had put forward for the murder was greed and that the receipt of the £16,000 had established the suggestion of greed in the case.

The appeal judges said, 'In a finely balanced case this could, we fear, have led to an unjust result'.

However, the appeal judges rejected the claim that the conviction had also been compromised by the judge's refusal to allow the defence to cross-examine a man that they said had confessed to Beatrice Greig's murder before retracting it. The appeal judge's said that the trial judge was right to have drawn the line where he did.

The appeal judges also questioned the circumstantial evidence against Beatrice Greig's daughter, questioning whether there was sufficient evidence to convict her and saying that the prosecution at best had only a 'marginal case'.

After her second conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal, Beatrice Greig's daughter said, 'It's just wonderful to be believed at last. I just believed that one day, somehow, the truth would come out'.

Beatrice Greig's daughter had been a library assistant at a museum in Nottingham. She would have been 47-years-old at the time of the murder.


*map pointers are rough estimates based on known location details as per Place field above.

see www.nottinghampost.com

see Total Crime

see Independent

see Innocent

see Aberdeen Press and Journal - Friday 20 June 1997

see Aberdeen Press and Journal - Saturday 07 December 1996

see Aberdeen Evening Express - Tuesday 07 April 1998