Fife MSP wants answers over death of Colin Marr in 2007

Willie Rennie MSP has written to Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain KC and the new chief constable of Police Scotland, Jo Farrell, to ask them to re-open the case and finally provide the family with answers.

Colin's mum, Margaret, and step-dad Stuart Graham do not believe the official verdict that he took his own life and now that Baroness Black has withdrawn a report that supported that view, the MSP has called on the the authorities to establish once and for all if there was foul play.

READ MORE: New review ordered into death of Colin Marr

Mr Rennie said: "I have been working with Margaret, Stuart and the family for years but it is remarkable that still now new information is uncovered.

Former Dunfermline MP, Willie Rennie, has been helping the family for more than a decade. (Image: Newsquest)

"The acknowledgement by the eminent Sue Black of mistakes with her assessment of the wound should result in a fresh initiative to get to the facts of what went on that night in 2007 in Lochgelly.

"Colin was taken from them in tragic circumstances and I know they won’t rest until they have all the answers they deserve."

Mr Rennie was Dunfermline MP in July 2007 when Colin, originally from Inverkeithing, died of a single stab wound.

The 23-year-old mortgage advisor was found in the livingroom of the home he shared with his fiancee, Candice Bonar, in Lochgelly's Johnston Crescent.

The family say police and prosecutors botched the investigation, rushed to judgement and quickly agreed that Colin killed himself. However the pathologist who carried out the post-mortem said that the knife went through the sternum and pierced his heart.

Experts said a wound like that would require considerable force and that it was unlikely Colin could have done it himself.

Professor Black's 2012 report contradicted those views, she suggested the knife had gone through soft tissue, wouldn't have required as much force and fitted with the view that it was suicide.

However, just before Christmas she said that opinion could no longer be counted upon.

Ms Bonar has always maintained that the couple rowed over his infidelity, she told him she was leaving and threw her engagement ring at him.

She said that after she left the room, Colin stabbed himself in the chest with the kitchen knife.

In any event, it should have been treated as a suspicious death but Mr Graham claimed there was no proper police investigation, no fiscal or pathologist attended that night, Ms Bonar's version of events was taken as fact and not corroborated, and it was swiftly filed away as an 'open and shut' case of suicide.

The investigation of Colin's death was deeply flawed, leaving Margaret and Stuart Graham still searching for answers. (Image: Newsquest)

The officer in charge was never called on to explain why he took the actions he did and there were no formal notes or records, while the scene log was lost or misplaced.

READ MORE: Mum's anger as more police flaws are revealed in Marr case

A Fife Police investigation in March 2009 found 25 failings, the force and the Crown Office also produced reports that were critical of the original investigation and issued apologies to his family.

Following those admissions, the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner upheld 12 complaints.

Last May a former senior police officer, who agreed to help the family in their fight for justice for no fee, slammed the "diabolical" way the Fife authorities investigated the death.

Tony Whittle, who retired as head of CID in West Yorkshire after 30 years in the force and still consults on cold cases, had told the Press: "The performance of the professionals on the night was bad enough but then you have the unwillingness of people to do their job later and the way evidence was manipulated to create the impression it was suicide.

"Then you have the fact that every move forward to try and establish the truth has been driven, not by the people whose job it is to do that, but by the family. It is an outrage."

To try and find answers, the family employed a private investigator to speak to numerous witnesses - the Press has seen the transcripts and listened to interviews - that raise new questions about what happened that night, who was there and the serious flaws in the way the death was investigated.

One former neighbour, who asked to remain anonymous, said that on the night Colin died a "police officer in uniform came in and said to me there was no-one else involved, it was suicide".

Experts say the location and force that must have been needed for the knife wound make it unlikely that Colin did it to himself. (Image: Colin Marr Memorial Trust)

She had added: "I thought that was a bit strange because they didn't have evidence at this time. I didn't think it was appropriate to say this at that time, it was too early."

Police Scotland and the Crown Office maintained that they would consider any new material relevant to Colin's death and in April 2021 Mr Graham handed over a dossier including the new witness statements and two reports, from expert forensic pathologist Dr Nat Cary, that challenged the original police conclusion that it was suicide.

Shortly after, prosecutors confirmed they were pursuing "further lines of inquiry".

In a report Dr Cary had stated: "The pathological findings are not typical of self-infliction in that there are no tentative wounds, severe force would have been required and the knife was withdrawn from the wound, allegedly by the deceased.

"In my opinion this case is and always was a homicide until satisfactorily proven otherwise. It is disappointing that the direction of further inquiries appears to have been more about shoring up a position that it was not a homicide, rather than considering it from a neutral position."

The Crown Office said that, once the further enquiries are complete, all the evidence will be reviewed "by a prosecutor who has had no previous involvement in the case”.