A demand for more funding for council across Scotland to tackle unprecedented budget problems has been publicly backed by Falkirk councillors, after they gave the COSLA Save Our Services campaign unanimous support.
27.11.2022 - 09:25 / dailyrecord.co.uk
An ex-detective who played a key role in the hunt for serial killer Bible John has called for the case to be reopened. It follows allegations that senior officers in the original 60s investigation orchestrated a “cover-up” on a suspect 48 hours after the last murder.
Ex-detective superintendent Robert Johnstone believes the Crown Office should order Police Scotland to carry out fresh inquiries.
Johnstone spent more than a year on the Bible John case, working with CID boss Joe Beattie at Partick police station in Glasgow. But two former detectives who reinvestigated the case in 1995 claim Beattie kept the name of prime suspect John Irvine McInnes out of the probe as he was the cousin of a close friend – police officer James McInnes.
Johnstone, now 86, said: “The Crown Office should instruct Police Scotland to carry out a proper new inquiry.
“If I was still a detective, I’d want to get to the bottom of this. I’d also want to know why the findings in the 1995 investigation – including allegations against Beattie – were not followed up and appear to have been abandoned halfway through.”
A BBC Radio Scotland podcast – Bible John: Creation of a Serial Killer – revealed the claims relate to the murder of Helen Puttock, 29, in 1969, one of three killings linked to Bible John. The murders of Jemima McDonald, 32, and Patricia Docker, 25, also remain unsolved.
Helen got a taxi from Glasgow’s Barrowland ballroom to her home in Scotstoun with her sister Jean and a man they met at the dancehall. He was called “John” and peppered his conversations with phrases from the Bible.
Former detective chief inspector Jim McEwan said they found detailed evidence that McInnes, who killed himself in 1980, was the Bible-quoting man in the taxi.
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