Lorna Porter

Lorna Ann Porter was found with her throat cut near a railway line at Bellshill on 10 September 1984.

Her body was found in a narrow lane behind Bellshill Railway Station at 12.15pm.

An ex-policeman was convicted of her murder, but his convcition was found to be unsafe and quashed and he was acquitted following a second trial.

The ex-policeman had been convicted in February 1988. He was said to have confessed to the murder and to have been seen by a man arguing with her. Her body was found on wasteland near to his home. However, it was heard that the key prosecution witness, who had said he had seen a man answering the ex-policeman's description with Lorna Porter on the night in question in the garden of 18 Thorn Road, had lied.

The man admitted that he had made the story up from gossip.

It was claimed that the police had wanted the case 'tidied up', and that the evidence against the ex-policeman had been based only on suspicion.

The trial heard that the first piece of the main evidence against the man was his confession after a police chase in April 1985, which was later followed by the main witness who told the police in April 1987 that he had seen the ex-policeman, or a man that looked like him, arguing in the garden of 18 Thorn Road.

The ex-policeman was arrested on 5 October 1987 at his home in Drumchapel.

Lorna Porter had been known as Loopy. It was noted that durnig the investigation that some people might not have come forward because they had not known her real name.

She had been a factory worker at Carfin Industrial Estate. She had been 5ft 11in tall, slimly built with blonde feather cut hair. On the date of her murder she had been wearing light coloured jeans, a white blouse and white jacket.

She had previously attended a primary school in Holytown before moving to Bellshill Academy. She had been an only child and been a former member of the Girl's Brigade.

She had become engaged to her fiance only two weeks before her murder. Her fiance had lived in Invercanny Drive in Drumchapel.

Her body was found near Bellshill Railway Station. She had returned by train from Drumchapel at 10.45pm. However, her movements following that were unknown, but it was thought that she might have intended ro catch a bus to her home at 37 Apollo Path, Holytown, in Bellshill's Main Street.

When she was found, her body had been lying face downwith her throat cut and her arm behind her back, it being noted that it had all the signs of a classic sentry-taking operation as taught to Royal Marine commandos. A sergeant in the Marine's police investigation section at Portsmouth desribed at the trial how recruits were taught unarmed combat and restraint techniques, including the use of a hammer lock that entailed forcing an opponents arm up behind their back, and thus allowing them to mover a person over distances.

The sergeant described how marines were taught to dispose of a sentry ruthlessly, silently and with speed if no prisoners were to be taken. He said that the method was to approach by stealth, clamp a hand over the nose and mouth of the sentry andf then kill him either by cutting his throat or by stabbing him from the rear. When he was then shown photographs of Lorna Porter's bodylying ace down with her left arm twisted behind her back, he said:

When the sergeant was shown pictures of blood stains on the back of Lorna Porter's jeans, he agreed that marines were taught to wipe their knives on their own, or their victims legs after a killing.

The pathologist that carried out the post mortem said that she had been the victim of a savage and determined attack. He said that Lorna Porter had probably been attacked from behind, forced down on the ground with her attacker on top of her, and hat it was possible a had had been clamped over her mouth and her head pulled back before her throat was cut from left to right, severing every major organ in her neck.

He added that a secnd blow had severed musces on the left side of the neck and that smaller wounds around the main would could indicate frightening or torture injuries.

She had also been robbed of her boots and two bags.

It was noted that thmurder weapon and her boots and other belongings were never found.

During the investigation, a woman was said to have telephoned the police 3 times, and they appealed for her to contact them again. the police said:

The police said that they were certain that Lorna Porter had known her killer.

At the trial it was alleged that the ex-policeman, who had also been a former Royal Marine, had assaulted Lorna Porter in his garden at 18 Thorn Road, Bellshill, or nearby, on 9 or 10 September 1984 and then dumped her body. THe ex-policeman had been discharged from the Royal Marines on compassionate grounds in April 1977. He resigned from the police in June 1984 after serving at Cummock, Mortherwell and Bellshjill.

Her body was found on waste ground at the rear of the Training Centre for the Disabled in Hunter Street.

It was noted that the murder scene had not been on the direct route from the station to the bus stop that she might have gone to.

The police said tat several witnesses had come forward, but that they were still keen to trace a couple that had been on the same train as Lorna Porter and who had walked off towards Neilson Street from the station in the diretion of Motherwell Road, the same route that Lorna Porter would have taken.

The police also appealed for several other possible witnesses to come forward:

1. Youn man who boarded at Glasgow Central Station. He was about 5ft 5in tall and had sat in the centre carriage eating a Kentucky Fried Chicken supper and had still be aboard the train when it left Bellshill for Uddington.
2. Man in his 20's , wearing an anorak and open necked shirt who alighted a Motherwell.
3. Man in his 30's of medium build, wearing a blazer, light coloured slacks and carrying a holdall with Barratt printed on it.
4. Girls agged 14-15 who approached a man on Motherwell Road at 10.40pm and asked him the time.

It was heard that Lorna Porter had just returned to Bellshill by train, having spent the weekend with her fiance in Drumchapel and alleged that she had then called at the ex-policeman's house to see his wife, who was her fiance's sister, but found her to be out.

It was heard that later in July 1985 the ex-policeman had been stopped by a policeman in a road traffic offence and was alleged to have said:

However, the ex-policeman denied having made that statement. At the trial it was heard that at the time he had been suffering from stress due to marital problems and made the confession afer a car chase, following continual harrasment from the police.

It was also claimed that the ex-policeman had threatened a couple in Bellshill  and told the woman that if she said anything to the police about him that she would end up the same as her friend. A 25-year-old woman that had lived in Dean Street, Bellshill said that almost two weeks after Lorna Porter's murder, a friend of hers, that she had been in the local miners' welfare clb when the ex-policeman had come over, out his hand on her shoulers and started shouting at her and askedin who she had been talking to. She said that she replied nobody and asked him what he meant by it and that he replied:

At the trial, the woman denied that she had been rumour-mongering and spreading the ex-policeman's name about as a suspect for the murder.

Following the alleged confession, it was heard that the man that said he saw the ex-policeman with Lorna Porter was interviewed and he told the police that he had been stading outside the miners' welfare club opposite the ex-policeman's house when he saw a man arguing with a girl and then saw the man grab the girl by the arm and say:

It was then alleged that the ex-policem marched the girl, Lorna Porter, to the place where she was killed.

At the trial the ex-policeman said that on the night of the murder he had been at home. witnesses  said that they saw him near his home during the evening but that he could not prove where he had been between 10.30pm and 1am on the night in question. He said that he had earlier sen his wife and children off on a train to Drumchapel and then in the evening taped the television program Lace for a friend after whcih he had gone out to Smarties for a drink and then returned home. He said that he then began to watch Lace, but was bored and didn't like the black and white film being shown on television and so he decided to wat the film First Blood with Sylvester Stallone on video, after which at 1am he went out to get a cheesburger andf returned home and cleared up the kitchen floor.

It was also heard that the ex-policeman had given wet jeans to the police the day after Lorna Porter's murder which were found to have had holes in them that the ex-policeman said had been caused when burnt by acid. However, examination of them found that they had been cut, after whcih the ex-policeman changed his story and said that his wfe had cut them, at which point the ex-policeman at the trial jumped up and said:

At the trial the ex-policeman said that he had been hounded by the police and the publi fololwing Lorna Porter's death and been forced to move from his house in Thorn Road, near the scene of the murder and go to Glasgow.

He said that witnesses had lied when they said that he had confessed to cutting Lorna Porter's throat.

He said:

The confession was said to have been made on 10 July 1985 at Drumchapel. THe ex-policeman said that it was rubbish adn that at the time he had been upset because his wife had left him two days earlier. He said that the police again started askig him questions about Lorna Porter, but denied saying that he had done her in or that he had wanted to kill himself.

He admitted that he had banged on his cell door at Clydesdale police station, saying:

He also denied that he had been trained to 'take a sentry from behind with a knife' sduring his five years in the marines, but admitted that he had been trained in unarmed combat from a defensive point of view.

It was noted that he had denied having had a knife in the house at any time, but later admitted that a Pakistani man had given him a flickknife sometime earlier, but that he had given it back.

When he was asked about the attitude of former police colleauges, he said:

At the trial in February 1988, it was heard that the case hung on two crucial parts of the evience, the alleged confession and the evidence of the man that said he had seen a man and woman arguing in the garden.

However, at an appel in 1999, it was heard that the man's brother, amd ea sworn affidavit that his brother could not have been at the miners' welfare club when he said he was. He said that on the night he had been outside the house of the daughter of a woman that he was seeing when he saw his brother approach just after 10pm and that after that he was around the flats until about midnight. The woman that the brither had been seeinalso said that she had seen the man outside the house of her daughter.

Lorna Porter was buried at the parish church in Holytown on Friday 14 September 1984.It was noted that the Miniter at the funeral prayed for the return of the death penalty as he buried her. He added that although there should be forgiveness, that the murderer should also pay his debt to society.