Murder of Margaret Fleming

Margaret Fleming (1 November 1980 – c. December 1999/January 2000) was a Scottish woman who was murdered by her nominated carers Edward Cairney (1941 – 2023) and Avril Jones (b. 1960) in the village of Inverkip, Inverclyde, Scotland.

Background
Margaret Fleming was born in 1980. She had learning difficulties which had been identified at a young age. After her father died in 1995, Fleming began to live with a couple he had been close friends with and who he had named as her guardians in his will - Edward Cairney and Avril Jones. Living with them at their house "Seacroft" in Inverkip, they became her full-time carers, with Jones managing Fleming's disability benefits.

In 2016, changes to the social security system meant Fleming was required to reapply for disability benefits. Jones completed an application form for new benefits on Fleming's behalf which raised concern. It was then discovered that no one from social services had been in contact with Fleming for 17 years. When neither Department for Work and Pensions or social work were able to contact Fleming, Police Scotland visited the couple's home. When police were also unable to locate Fleming, a missing person's investigation was launched.

Investigation and outcome
Upon investigation, it was discovered the last independent sighting of Margaret Fleming was on 17 December 1999, when she had visited the brother of Jones with the couple at his house. The following week she was not present with Cairney and Jones at a family Christmas dinner. On 5 January 2000, Jones claimed to her mother that Fleming had left with a member of the travelling community.

In 2017, while still under investigation, Cairney and Jones agreed to be interviewed by reporters from BBC and STV. In these interviews they claimed that Fleming was still alive and had been in contact with them recently. Jones claimed that she had been going to attend the benefits assessment with Fleming, who she said had refused to go, pushed her over and run away. Cairney also said that she had been travelling around Europe with members of the travelling community, using a fake passport and going by several aliases. He said she had been in Poland and was working as a gang master, hiring agricultural workers in the south of England and was involved in the illegal drugs trade. Cairney and Jones also claimed Fleming would come back occasionally to receive her disability benefit money from them.

In 2018 they appeared at the High Court in Glasgow, charged with murder. The prosecution case alleged that Fleming was killed by the couple between 18 December 1999 and 5 January 2000, with the murder being concealed and Jones continuing to receive Fleming’s benefits.

Following trial, in 2019 Cairney and Jones were both convicted of Margaret Fleming's murder and of perverting the course of justice on majority jury verdicts. They were each given a life sentence to serve a minimum of 14 years before being able to apply for parole. Jones was also unanimously convicted of fraud and ordered to pay back £182,000 of benefits which had been claimed in Margaret's name. Despite a painstaking search of their dilapidated property and its junk-filled garden, no trace of Fleming's body has ever been found.

The police investigation and subsequent murder trial were the subject of the BBC two-part documentary Murder Trial: The Disappearance of Margaret Fleming, broadcast in January 2020.

Cairney died in HMP Edinburgh on 15 October 2023, aged 82.

"Seacroft"
"Seacroft", the bungalow where Fleming, Cairney and Jones lived, stood on the coast, beside the A78 road about 500 m to the south of the village. In 2017 the property was sold. In January 2020, planning permission was given to build two new houses on the site, with the house being demolished in early March the same year.