Head-in-bag murderer wins 11-year reduction in sentence

Appeal judges have cut 11 years off the minimum jail term to be served by a man who murdered his fiancée and then, months later, tore apart her decomposed body and dumped her head in an Ikea bag.

Alan Cameron, 56, had been told he would spend at least 25 years in prison after a jury convicted him of killing Heather Stacey, 44, at her flat in the Granton area of Edinburgh.

However, his lawyer argued at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh that 25 years should be reserved for the worst cases of murder.

The judges yesterday said that, given no-one knew precisely how Cameron had carried out the murder, there was no justification for a sentence beyond a "routine" term of 14 years.

It is one of the biggest reductions in a sentence in a murder case in recent times, but Ms Stacey's family chose not to dwell on it.

"Hopefully, today's decision can bring us some peace to deal with our grief and move on," said Danielle Williamson, 24, one of Ms Stacey's four children.

The murder investigation began with the discovery of Ms Stacey's head in an Ikea bag on Hogmanay 2008, near a footpath in Hawthornvale Path, north Edinburgh. Other body parts were found in the Granton area.

Pathologists were unable, because of the advanced state of decomposition, to give a cause of death.

Cameron claimed that Ms Stacey had died naturally in December 2007, while he was out of her flat in Royston Mains Place. He said he had not called police because there was a warrant out for his arrest over a breach of the peace.

He admitted that, for more than a year, he kept up a pretence that Ms Stacey was still alive - he sent false text messages and had simulated telephone conversations with her - and collected almost 5,000 in benefits from her Post Office account.

When the local authority arranged repossession of the flat due to rent arrears, Cameron disposed of the body.

A jury convicted Cameron of murdering Ms Stacey "by means unknown", and of attempting to pervert the course of justice by hiding and disposing of the body, and of stealing the benefits money.

The trial judge, Lord Matthews, imposed the mandatory life sentence for the murder charge and set a "punishment part" of 25 years - the period Cameron would have to serve before he could apply for parole.

Lord Gill, the Lord Justice-Clerk, who heard the appeal with Lords Osborne and Marnoch, said the question in relation to the conviction was whether the circumstantial evidence was capable of yielding the inference Cameron had killed Ms Stacey.

"In my opinion, it is. It has been suggested on behalf of the appellant that on the evidence of the deceased's medical history, it was as likely that she died of natural causes as that she was murdered … I do not accept that argument is valid," ruled Lord Gill.John Scott, solicitor-advocate for Cameron, submitted that a punishment part of 25 years would normally be imposed only in the worst cases of murder, such as the killing of a child. He said there was no basis for treating this case as one of the worst.

Lord Gill said: "The appropriate punishment part should be in the range that is normal in cases of murder in which there are no unusually aggravating circumstances … 14 years is sufficient in this case."