A FINANCIAL adviser suffered unspeakable cruelty, pain, humiliation and degradation after she was abducted by four men who controlled the last two weeks of her life before she was murdered, a court was told.
Lynda Spence, 27, was in pain as she was taped to a chair and assaulted in an attic flat in West Kilbride, North Ayrshire.
The trial of Colin Coats and Philip Wade, both 42, at the High Court in Glasgow heard she sat covered in her own bodily waste.
In her closing speech for the prosecution, Solicitor General Lesley Thomson, QC, said the case against the men was circumstantial, but compelling.
She added: "The Crown case is that four men controlled the last two weeks of Lynda's life."
Ms Thomson said the evidence pointed to Coats being in charge and Wade his trusted lieutenant. She added: "The two other members of the team, David Parker and Paul Smith, have accepted their part. They provided the place of confinement. They guarded her day after day while she was tortured by Colin Coats and Philip Wade."
The prosecutor dismissed defence claims about Albanians, gangsters and police informants and told jurors: "They played no part in Lynda's death. The truth is more sordid and closer to home. The truth is days of captivity for that young woman, tied to a chair in pain in her own bodily waste in the attic room.
"The truth is days of unspeakable cruelty, pain, humiliation and degradation.
"The motive for this hate-filled crime was that Colin Coats and Philip Wade had lost two things that were important to them – money and face."
Ms Thomson said the Crown position was that Ms Spence – who has been missing since April 2011, was dead and added: "If she was alive she would have contacted her parents no matter what trouble she was in. She has not had any contact with her mother since the last call made to her on April 20, 2011.
"This is not a young woman who has chosen not to make contact. This is a young woman who can't make contact because she is no longer alive."
Earlier, the court heard evidence from two police officers and three members of the public who claim to have seen Ms Spence, from Glasgow, after her disappearance on April 14, 2011.
All of the witnesses stood by their original statements apart from PC Stephen McBride, who said he had got his dates mixed up. He had originally claimed he saw Ms Spence outside a bar in Glasgow on April 26, but in evidence yesterday, he said he now believed it was March 29.
Coats and Wade deny abducting, torturing and murdering Ms Spence between April 14 and 28, 2011.
The trial continues.
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