Let's hope they do, for his family's sake.
Police Scotland 'absolutely committed' to solving doorstep murder
The family of Alistair Wilson have been critical of Police Scotland's investigation into the 2004 murder.www.bbc.co.uk
It's an unusual hit. The hitman didn't kill him when he appeared at the door the first time. He let Alistair go back inside the house. Alistair had no reason to go back outside but he did so to see if the hitman was still there and then he was shot. Or so we are told.
Yes, unusual. I suspect there were people about the first time, or something else didn't go according to plan. IMO
The far greater criticism in the Lawrence and Morgan cases did not produce this response (until it became a political issue). I do not doubt that the case will benefit from a thorough reinvestigation but I am sure there is politics at play. An instruction to reinvestigate is meaningless without the resource to do so and yet the Justice Secretary, who is in charge of that resource and the only one who can ensure a reinvestigation actually happens, seems strangely quiet. I am also concerned about other parallels with the Lawrence case. Progress was only made in that case when the Met put DI Clive Driscoll on it, resulting in 2 convictions after many years. This completely removed the influence of the previous team and enabled a clean reinvestigation by perhaps the most honest copper in the Met (he was the DI who was removed from the Lambeth child abuse investigation in 1998, on political instructions, when he wanted to interview the Boatengs, a cabinet minister and his wife). I see little sign that Police Scotland is making a similar clean sweep.
There might well be politics at work here. I don't believe there is any new information and it seems this move has been prompted by the family's criticism and the fact that they have made a series of formal complaints recently. Why the JS has been quiet on all of this is strange.
www.thescottishsun.co.uk
The mistaken identity theory was put forward by the wife of the victim, even though she was the only witness to the gunman asking for her husband 'by name'. If it was a hit and AW was the intended target then it almost didn't work. I think anything that AW had done to warrant such a measure would be obvious to investigators, but there seems little in his back story that would point to a motive. He didn't have any obvious enemies. The objection to the retro planning application is a desperate red herring, IMO
Indeed. I'll hold my hands up and say at this stage I'm far from convinced that this was a pre planned killing. To me it looks more like the shooting occurred as a result of a culmination of events on the doorstep that night that happened on the spur of the moment. There's no hard evidence to back up that theory just as there's no hard evidence to back up the pre planned killing theory either.
Yes it did ocurr to me that it might have been a customer from the bank with some sort of grievance. However there's no indication AW knew or recognised this person. I suppose it could be someone who had only been dealt with remotely though.
It could be a case of something AW knew about someone, rather than something he had done.
It would be good to hear a full account from AW's wife. If the family has complained about the investigation then perhaps they will recount their experience of the event in full on camera. Everything we have is a second hand account. I tend to sympathise with her reported view that her husband was ordinary and had no enemies, so it may well have been mistaken identity. How many middle order bank managers get murdered for lending or debts? It doesn't make sense. The planning objection makes even less sense. MOO
It would be but I don't think we will be getting one. I think it's the police who have told Veronica not to go in to detail about the envelope or to disclose the details of her conversation with Alastair.
I think everyone who has looked at this case is bothered and confused by it!
Yes, the BBC (I think) podcast on the case explained that she has been given instructions on what she can and cannot say.
Whilst I agree killings of bank managers are uncommon it does not mean this was mistaken identity. Firstly, there may have been something else not related to his job behind the killing. This was the case in the Goldman murder in Swindon in 2004 where the victim was a bank manager with a drug problem. Secondly, there could have been dodgy transactions either not disclosed or not uncovered. The Reading branch of HBOS ran what amounted to an organised scheme to defraud business owners for years which was only detected after a long time, resulting in prison terms for what were middle ranking bank managers. Given how long it took to uncover the Reading case imagine how easy it would be to overlook individual cases of transactions which may have caused anger.
I'd agree with this. It's akin to trying to prove a negative. Just because you haven't found anything doesn't mean there isn't anything to find. As they say, absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence. Also it can sometimes be something that would be considered incredibly trivial to most people that causes extreme rage in someone else. It's possible AW may have done something to upset someone and be completely unaware he had done so and that no one else would know either apart from the individual concerned.
