Plea for location of remains as callous pair face life in jail

Detectives believe tragic Margaret Fleming – last seen alive 20 years ago – died horrifically at the hands of greedy Edward Cairney and Avril Jones after they had pocketed her benefits for almost two decades.

A jury agreed and yesterday the couple were both found guilty of murdering Margaret following a trial at the High Court in Glasgow.

Following the verdict, Detective Superintendent Paul Livingstone, who led the investigation, called for Jones, 59, and Cairney, 77, to reveal what they did with Margaret’s remains.

He said: “There’s only two people that know that – that is Edward Cairney and Avril Jones.

“If they have got an ounce of decency left in their body, their lies and deceit have caught up with them, now’s the time to do the honest thing, do the right thing, and tell me what happened to Margaret.

“If there is a chance I can find her and get her back, I’ll do it.”

Cairney and Jones killed Margaret after being asked to look after her by her lawyer dad before he died.

Prosecutors believe Margaret – who would have been 19 at the time – died between December 1999 and January 2000 at their home in Inverkip, Renfrewshire.

Ex-marine engineer Cairney made a series of bizarre claims including Margaret had become a gangmaster and was a drug dealer and regularly returned to Scotland to collect her benefits.

Jones meantime continued to rake in £182,000 of benefits for her and they were only caught out after a DWP official raised the alarm following a benefits shake-up.

A missing person’s inquiry in 2016 later turned into a huge murder probe leading to the couple being held for killing Margaret.

Despite an extensive search, no body has ever been found. It is not even known how poor Margaret met her death.

One theory is she was starved and beaten and finally burned in the garden of the bungalow. Forensic experts found nearly 300 bone fragments but all were too small to identify as human.

Cairney and Jones continued to protest their innocence during a six-week trial but jurors agreed the pair had been motivated by “greed, arrogance and lies” and found them guilty.

Neither killer showed emotion and Cairney, who was on bail and in a wheelchair, was taken with Jones to the cells for transfer to prison.

Both face a life sentence when they return to the dock next month.