A MURDER victim's mother, who has campaigned for more than three years
for an inquiry into the police's handling of the case, yesterday accused
the Scottish Office of being involved in a cover-up.
Mrs Effie Drummond criticised officials in St Andrew's House for
accepting a report from Fife Chief Constable William Moodie into the
circumstances surrounding the investigation.
Mrs Drummond, 66, of St Andrews, said: ''The police and the Scottish
Office have turned my son's murder into a farce. This whole
investigation stinks and everyone is ignoring the truth. The chief
constable is covering up for his men and his report is a pack of lies.''
Her claims follow an inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the
death of Mr Sandy Drummond, a former soldier. He was strangled and
dumped on a farm track near his home on the outskirts of St Andrews in
June 1991.
During a fatal accident inquiry into his death, a pathologist,
Professor Anthony Busuttil, of Edinburgh University, criticised police
at the scene for failing to spot signs that Mr Drummond had been
murdered. The body was also removed before a full forensic examination
of the area.
Mrs Drummond said: ''Professor Busuttil's criticism of the police
handling of the investigation has been completely ignored by the
Scottish Office. The claims that a full-scale murder inquiry was
launched by the police the day after Sandy's body was found is also a
lie. It wasn't until the case was highlighted on the BBC Crimewatch
programme many months later that police said they were treating it as
murder.
''Until then, all they would say was that my son's death was
suspicious. It meant that people questioned during the investigation
were not aware it was murder.''
The intervention of the Scottish Office and the questioning of the
chief constable followed a plea by Mrs Drummond to the Prime Minister.
The Scottish Office's Home and Health Department ordered Mr Moodie to
have another look at it and prepare a report.
A spokesman at the Scottish Office said yesterday: ''The case is still
open and will remain so until a successful conviction is secured. There
will, however, be no further inquiry by the Scottish Office into the
police handling of the case.''
The investigation into Mr Drummond's death is one of the longest and
most detailed inquiries carried out by Fife Police. It has used an
incident room with a computer database and has taken up more than 16,000
man-hours, almost 600 statements, and almost 1000 questionnaires.
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