‘She waved her children off to school and then... she vanished’
On 28th April 1998 the mysterious disappearance of a young mother-of-two, Arlene Fraser, captured the nation's attention. The convicted killer, her husband Nat Fraser, is currently serving time in a Scottish prison but we still do not know what happened to her.
In The Scandals That Shocked Scotland, seasoned journalists with front row seats at some of the most shocking news events of the last few decades give their own account of what happened.
33-year-old Arlene Fraser vanished from her family bungalow in Elgin after waving her two young children off to school that morning.
"It was the talk of Scotland at the time because this was so unusual."
"Her friends and family were saying, 'she would not leave her children'", says Â鶹Éç investigative journalist, Samantha Poling.
Arlene's estranged husband, Nat Fraser, who at the time of her disappearance was out on bail having been charged with attempting to murder her, eventually went on trial for her murder.
The couple had recently split up and Mr Fraser was known to be very upset about it.
In January 2003, four years after she had gone missing, Nat Fraser was charged with conspiracy to murder along with his friend Hector Dick and a business associate, Glenn Lucas.
But 6 days into the trial charges against Dick and Lucas were dropped and Dick became a witness for the prosecution.
His friends' about-face was a ‘bombshell’ in the ‘trial of the century’
Journalists tell of the jaw-dropping moment the historic Nat Fraser trial turned a corner.
Nat Fraser was found guilty but maintained his innocence and after exhausting the appeal process in Scotland, turned to the Supreme Court in London where his conviction was overturned in 2011 owing in part to unheard questions around elements of the evidence at his original trial.
Retried in 2012, however, he was again found guilty. He is currently serving time in HMP Addiewell in the central belt of Scotland. He has never revealed any information regarding Arlene's remains. He will be able to apply for parole in 2030.
'Suzanne's Law'
Arlene's murder is still discussed in the news today as an example of a convicted murderer refusing to release details of the whereabouts of their victim's remains, something which has led to calls for a change in the law.
The idea is named Suzanne's Law after Suzanne Pilley, whose body is believed to have been buried in a remote part of Argyll following her murder in 2010.
Under recent new proposals published by the Scottish government, killers who refuse to reveal the location of their victims' remains may not be freed from jail.
In a recent the father of Arlene Fraser, now 79, says he would accept her killer being freed from jail if he revealed where her body was.
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Watch ‘The Scandals That Shocked Scotland’
Episode 2 - Thursday 5th December at 8.30pm
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