Nat Fraser gives up appeal to cut term for killing wife
Challenge to sentence dropped
Published:
CONVICTED wife killer Nat Fraser has given up his fight to slash his 25-year jail sentence.
The former Elgin businessman had been due to appeal against his jail term today but the Court of Appeal in Edinburgh said Fraser dropped the challenge.
The move comes just weeks after the 49-year-old lost a long-running appeal against his conviction for murdering wife Arlene.
Arlene’s father Hector McInnes said: “We have been at courts all over the country in Inverness, Perth, Edinburgh and Dornoch.
“From April 28, 1998, he has certainly been giving us the runaround. We are hoping this will be the end of it. But if somebody’s getting put away for 25 years, he’s obviously going to think of something else.”
Although this appeal has been dropped, his solicitor said other options were being looked at but would not specify what they were.
Solicitor John Macauley said: “We are considering all the options. All I can say is that I don’t think we’ve heard the last of it.”
Nat was given a life sentence in 2003 for killing Arlene and was ordered to serve a minimum of 25 years.
Arlene was 33 and had asked her husband for a divorce when she disappeared from her home in New Elgin on April 28, 1998.
At Fraser’s appeal against conviction at the end of last year, his lawyers claimed he was the victim of a miscarriage of justice.
They had argued that vital evidence casting doubt on his guilt was withheld from the defence team.
But three senior judges ruled the appeal said the evidence against Fraser was “overwhelming”.
Professor of criminal justice at Aberdeen University Peter Duff said there were few options open to Fraser.
But he could go to the European Court of Human Rights or the Privy Council on the grounds of an unfair trial.
