DAY EIGHT RECAP -
'"MOUNTAIN" OF EVIDENCE AGAINST THE TEEN'KEY EVENT
During yesterday’s proceedings, jurors were told there is a “mountain” of evidence against the accused teenager.
Advocate depute Iain McSporran QC said the boy, who cannot be named due to his age, had told a “pack of lies” from the witness box at the High Court.
But the teenager’s defence lawyer, Brian McConnachie QC, urged the jury to acquit his client, questioning why he would abduct, rape and murder Alesha having “never met her in his life”.
The schoolgirl had arrived at the home her grandparents shared with her father for the school holidays shortly before she went missing on July 2 last year.
Her body was found in woods on the Isle of Bute hours later.
Addressing the jury in his closing speech on the eighth day of the trial, Mr McSporran invited them to convict the accused, saying the only “true” verdict would be to find him guilty.
He added: “We say he raped and murdered her and that’s the verdict we seek.”
However, Mr McConnachie said the question the jury needs to address is whether they are satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the accused “abducted, raped and murdered a six-year-old girl he had never met before in his life” before “calmly” walking back home, “wandering around his garden like he didn’t have a care in the world” - as the lawyer said was shown on CCTV - and going to bed.
“My submission is the answer to that question has to be no and the verdict has to be one of acquittal,” he added.
He highlighted that no DNA from the accused was found in the house where Alesha had been staying, and none of the schoolgirl’s DNA or blood was found in the teenager’s home.
Alesha MacPhail jurors to be sent out in teenage boy's murder trial