Sunday 13 February 2005

13-Feb-2005 - NotW - DUNBLANE PROBE

13-Feb-2005 - NotW - DUNBLANE PROBE

News of the World

Dunblane probe

By: David Leslie

Sunday February 13, 2005

Page: Scotland 6


THE Scottish Executive is facing calls for a fresh probe into the Dunblane tragedy.

Scottish Socialist Party MSP Carolyn Leckie claims the original inquiry presided over by Lord Cullen -was "deeply flawed".

Leckie (right), MSP for Central Scotland, wrote to First Minister Jack McConnell last month.

She told him: "I believe the Cullen Inquiry left many important questions unanswered.

"In view of my belief that it bears the hallmarks of a cover-up, I repeat my call for a new inquiry, without restrictions as to its
scope and remit, into the Dunblane tragedy."

McConnell has now handed the letter to Justice Minister Cathy Jamieson and asked the Lord Advocate, Colin Boyd, to answer a series of questions posed by the MSP.

Leckie's intervention follows a lengthy campaign by former Dunblane ambulance worker Sandra Uttley who claims the Cullen Inquiry hid blunders by police and others in authority who were warned Hamilton was a psychopathic gun nut.

Sandra, 44, said: "I believe that we owe it to the dead children to discover the truth of what happened that day."

It was set up two months after the March 1996 atrocity in which 16 children and their teacher were shot dead by Thomas Hamilton.

The 26-day hearing was told police officers had been warned that Hamilton, 43, bore a grudge against bosses at the quiet Perthshire school after they rejected his attempts to organise boys' clubs.