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Liam Aitchison’s killers lose murder appeal      29/10/14

 

► Two Lewis men found guilty of murdering Liam Aitchison  

The two islanders found guilty of murdering Liam Aitchison have lost their appeal for freedom.

Jonathon Mackinnon and Stefan Millar claim they are innocent and were wrongly convicted.

They were found guilty of brutally stabbing Liam Aitchison following a trial at Glasgow High Court last year. The 16-year-old from Lochboisdale was killed in a derelict building in Steinish, outside Stornoway.

The pair maintained they did not murder the teenager.

Jonathon Mackinnon, now aged 24 years, then of Plasterfield, Stornoway, and  Stefan Millar, 23, of Carloway, Lewis, were sentenced to life with a minimum of 18 years in jail before being eligible to apply for parole.

Their appeal was heard by judges Lady Dorrian, Lord Bracadale and Lord Drummond Young at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh today.

Their lawyers insisted they were victims of a miscarriage of justice, arguing there was insufficient evidence to justify a guilty verdict.

Another jury would have cleared the men from the charge, they said.

Despite a detailed forensics investigation, there was no hard evidence to link Millar ’s involvement with the murder - the absence of witnesses, his fingerprints, blood or DNA at the scene highlighted his solicitor.

Three or four drips of blood at the scene which matched Mr Mackinnon’s were not left there at the time of Liam’s death insisted his lawyer.

Blood cannot be dated and Mr Mackinnon had cut himself at the rundown house some years beforehand, the advocate told the appeal judges.

One witness who took the stand against Millar in last year’s trial was unreliable it was claimed.

The jury should have been instructed to ignore that piece of evidence, Millar’s advocate stressed.

The judges ruled the jury had not erred in delivering a guilty verdict.

► Two Lewis men found guilty of murdering Liam Aitchison