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00:19There was a foreboding feeling about this investigation from the get-go.
00:2633-year-old Arlene Fraser from New Elgin has vanished without trace.
00:32There's no signs of a struggle. The door's unlocked. The house, it's like the Mary Celeste.
00:37It seemed so extraordinary that a young monk could just vanish into thin air.
00:43I was really, really worried. My sister's missing. Where is she?
00:48A hundred people are now involved in the search, including mountain rescue teams.
00:52Things like this don't happen in Elgin. It was a complete and utter mystery.
00:58We've got no witnesses. We've got no crime scene or forensics. We've got no body.
01:04Arlene Fraser's disappearance has baffled police and her family.
01:08We can't understand why this has happened.
01:12Somebody must know something.
01:15Things are quiet for a number of months and then all hell breaks loose.
01:18Detectives are trying to trace a missing car they believe could be linked.
01:22Well, that's a huge breakthrough in the case.
01:24It's just the latest twist in a Murray mystery story that is far from its end.
01:29The case had run for years.
01:32We were even more determined.
01:34The twists, the turns, the court cases, the suspects. It was huge.
01:41We are never going to give up.
02:02Here we are in Elgin, capital of the lay of Murray. It's a classic Main Street borough.
02:08A castle at one end, cathedral at the other.
02:12And widening out in the middle to form this marketplace.
02:18In 1998, I was a divisional police sergeant.
02:21I was promoted to Elgin, which meant I had to relocate my wife and family at that time.
02:29As a family, we had a great time in Elgin.
02:33Elgin is a very small place.
02:35It's a stunning town.
02:37It's very beautiful.
02:39It is a very safe town.
02:41It has a relatively low crime rate.
02:49Good morning, Scotland.
02:50It's Tuesday the 28th of April, and here are today's top stories.
02:55Grampian are set to name their new police chief, who could be running the force within six weeks.
03:00And Scotland have drawn favourites Brazil.
03:02On the 28th of April, I was the night shift sergeant.
03:06I arrived for work, and I was told that there was a mother that had gone missing from a house
03:12in New Elgin.
03:13And that mother was Arlene Fraser.
03:24She hadn't been there when her young children had returned from school.
03:30It was unusual for their mother not to be there, to the point where Jamie left her a note.
03:42The neighbour had taken Natalie and Jamie in.
03:46Missing person queries are quite common for the police.
03:49And there was a sense that she might have gone out socialising.
03:55If she had gone of her own volition, who could she potentially be with?
04:00So we had a police officer contact Arlene's sister.
04:04It was round about two o'clock in the morning.
04:07There was a knock on the door, and I jumped out of bed, looked out the window, I could see
04:14a police car.
04:16My husband, Stephen, went to the door.
04:20The policeman said, does Carol Gillis live here?
04:24I thought, what? Why is he looking for me?
04:28And he said, your sister's missing.
04:33And then from then, the nightmare began.
04:41We were up all night, making phone calls.
04:44My mum was on holiday in the noon.
04:47We didn't know what to think, but we think she's, you know, we see some friend and she hasn't told
04:53us about it.
04:54You know, everything would work out.
05:01We had a police officer in the house the whole night, in case Arlene came home.
05:05But the following day, Arlene still hadn't turned up.
05:13On April the 29th, it was a day started like any other.
05:16I would come in, normally about 7.30, quarter to eight.
05:20I would then phone the police and find out what was happening that morning.
05:27That day, nobody was answering the phone.
05:31Kept ringing, kept ringing, and eventually an officer picked up and I said, look, where is everybody?
05:35He said, they're all in Elgin.
05:38And it was that point when we knew something big is happening.
06:06The house was just like anyone else's house.
06:08It was just a typical family home.
06:11The house was just like anyone else's house.
06:12With kids' toys, in the kids' bedrooms.
06:18I mean, you're looking for signs of a disturbance.
06:23You're also looking to make sure that Arlene is not in her own house.
06:27So you're searching every nook, every cranny.
06:33And then you're looking for clues as to where she might be.
06:39There was nothing there to suggest that she had packed her bags.
06:44Arlene had Crohn's disease.
06:46Arlene's medication was found within the house.
06:51You know, the ironing boards out.
06:53The hoover was plugged in.
06:55Her washing was hanging out.
06:59There was nothing to suggest that Arlene was planning to leave.
07:02The house didn't typically look like a crime scene.
07:09Arlene had just simply disappeared.
07:17I grabbed my suitcase and I told Carol I would come in and pick her up.
07:23And then went straight up to Elgin.
07:25But I mean, all the way up in the car, nobody spoke.
07:29I lived in Erskine at the time.
07:32It's a 200 mile journey.
07:33I literally could not speak.
07:37The words just wouldn't come out.
07:41When we actually got up to Elgin.
07:43The first place we went to, obviously, was the police station.
07:47And we were interviewed there, asked a lot of questions.
07:53The main inquiries that you carry out initially are to find out who Arlene is.
08:03Arlene was my little sister.
08:06There was only 21 months between us.
08:09Growing up, both of us were quite girly.
08:13There was make-up everywhere.
08:15She'd borrow my clothes, not tell me.
08:18Looking from the window above
08:21Arlene always looked lovely when she went out.
08:24We fought, we laughed.
08:27Came back only yesterday
08:29As she grew up, she got a bit rebellious.
08:33She tried smoking.
08:34She played truant.
08:36All the things that the mother doesn't want her child to do, sort of thing, Arlene tried it.
08:41You know, but just a typical teenager.
08:43She had plenty of friends, boyfriends, things like that.
08:49She was quite different to me.
08:51A little bit more laid back.
08:53Didn't really like school.
08:55So, she was never one for doing her homework or anything like that.
08:59But she wasn't work shy.
09:00She wanted to go out, get a job.
09:03She worked in a boutique.
09:05Then she worked in a bar.
09:06And she was quite happy doing that.
09:09All I needed was the love you gave.
09:13Arlene met Nat in 85.
09:15Nat Fraser was well known in Elgin.
09:21He ran a fruit and veg business.
09:24He played in a band.
09:27You know, he's a nice looking guy.
09:30He's funny, charming.
09:40We went to the wedding and Nat had a black eye.
09:44Because he had been in a fight.
09:46Arlene was just shaking her head as if she wasn't surprised that he had a black eye.
09:55But they seemed to be happy enough.
09:57I mean, he was quite easy to get on with.
09:59Once he stopped showing off and acting big man.
10:03And if he was making Arlene happy, it didn't matter.
10:13When she married him, she gave up work because she had Jamie in 1987.
10:22And then she had Natalie five years later.
10:28When she said she was pregnant, I couldn't visualise her as a mother.
10:31But she took me completely by surprise because she fell into the routine of being a mum better than I
10:36ever did.
10:37You know, she was just over the moon. We were children. She really was.
10:44She doted on both of them.
10:47But when Natalie was five, she enrolled in the local college.
10:53And I think she just wanted to better herself.
10:55It was a brave step for her.
10:57Because I'm not sure that she would have felt the most confident.
11:01So I was very proud of her to do that.
11:06The more that you delved into Arlene as a person,
11:09she wasn't the type that would have gone away out socialising
11:13and left her kids to fend for themselves.
11:17I was beginning to become afraid that something sinister had happened.
11:22So there was a full-blown inquiry team that were deployed in Eldon.
11:29In the late 90s, I was a detective inspector based in Aberdeen.
11:34I was relatively young and new to that role.
11:41When Arlene went missing, I was seconded up to Elgin.
11:44Officers say 33-year-old Arlene Fraser from New Elgin has vanished without trace
11:49and they're extremely concerned for her safety.
11:51At that time, we thought we were at the cutting edge of criminal investigation.
11:56But back then, policing was, of course, very different to today
11:59and the advances that have taken place.
12:04So it was far more basic in terms of knocking on doors,
12:09doing more of that groundwork.
12:15But of course, one of the priorities in a missing person
12:18is to understand the timeline of the individual concern.
12:22So we looked at Arlene's movements.
12:28Around 8 in the morning, Arlene had been seen by a neighbour hanging out washing.
12:34She waved the kids off to school at around 9 o'clock.
12:37We then know at 9.41, Arlene made a telephone call to the school
12:43enquiring about the return time from a school trip that her son Jamie was going on that day.
12:50So they then phoned back around about 10 minutes later
12:56to give her the information on the time, but the phone rang out.
13:06At 11am, she'd failed to meet a friend who she'd arranged to meet in the morning.
13:12I went round at 11 o'clock and there was no answer, so I just walked in like I normally
13:18do
13:18and the house was empty.
13:21It's not like Arlene, you know, she'd make plans and it's not like her to break them or anything like
13:26that.
13:29Our assessment is that Arlene would have gone missing
13:31in that very short window between the first phone call and probably the second phone call.
13:37So, we were looking at a 10 minute window of opportunity.
13:43But also, one of the main inquiries that you carry out in relation to a missing person is,
13:47you know, what access do they have to vehicles?
13:50Well, she didn't have access to her car because it had been burnt in her driveway
13:54about three weeks before her disappearance.
14:06So that was a very early curiosity, a sort of connection with Arlene's disappearance.
14:13It also transpired that anybody who knew Arlene or knew Arlene's behaviors would be confident that she would be at
14:20home alone.
14:22It was a Tuesday morning.
14:24Every other day and evening she had kids or she was at college.
14:27So, the fact she went missing on a Tuesday morning was either a coincidence
14:33or, if there was anything sinister, it was somebody who knew her movements.
14:39In an investigation of this nature, we need to look at the husband, Nat.
14:45And we immediately found a red flags around their relationship.
14:50You know, he gave this impression that, you know, I'm a friendly guy, I'm a good guy.
14:54But we didn't know what was going on behind closed doors.
15:02Arlene had been the victim of a very serious domestic assault five weeks before her disappearance at the hands of
15:08her husband.
15:11She had just been round at friends innocently, sitting, having a drink, and she'd come home late and temper got
15:23better off him.
15:25He'd throttled her.
15:28This was a sustained attack on her and to the point where she lost consciousness.
15:35Ten more seconds and she would be dead.
15:39So close was she to death that Grampian police took the very unusual steps of having her examined by a
15:48pathologist.
15:54Arlene's eyes were bloodshot and that would explain that that was a significant act of strangulation.
16:01I remember mum phoning me and she said,
16:04Are you sitting down?
16:05And she says, Nat's been charged with attempted murder.
16:11Murder's not an everyday word for normal people, you know.
16:19And from then on we just stepped into another world.
16:34Arlene didn't actually want to put him in jail.
16:37Her future must have been terrifying for her.
16:41She was going to be a witness in an attempted murder trial.
16:44I remember her saying, how can I send the father of my children to jail?
16:54We had no idea to the extent of abuse that was going on in her life until the attempted murder
17:04charge.
17:07But Arlene told her friends.
17:13But she still sometimes, you know, put on a front that everything was, it was okay, but the more you
17:20pushed her, the more she would tell you.
17:22We actually arranged for an evening night together.
17:25When I arrived, I had been told by Arlene that she'd had an argument with Nat.
17:30And he'd actually kicked her and punched her.
17:35She was really scared, she didn't want anybody to know about anything.
17:38She was actually ashamed.
17:40She felt as if she had contributed to this, you know, because she was the one that was bruised.
17:47I noticed that she's, you know, she'd lost quite a bit of weight, but she took it to be just
17:52the stress of everything, you know, what she was going through and that.
17:57But she'd started going to college and she was just beginning to find her own personality again, I think, and
18:03picking up and meeting new friends, you know, and loving it.
18:08And just, Nat just didn't want her to be doing that.
18:12You know, he just wanted her to be where he knew she was.
18:19I found out she had been to a refuge.
18:22I said, why did you not tell me?
18:24And she said, well, you would all just worry.
18:27You would all just worry.
18:31If you go to a refuge, you obviously feel scared for your safety, for the safety of your children.
18:38So that's what was going through my mind.
18:41That must have been how bad it was for her.
18:52This area here in New Elgin was the first location for the woman's refuge.
18:58It's, yeah, it's, I'm reflecting on just how it was then.
19:06There was an article in the local press in the 90s about the incidents of domestic violence in Moray.
19:13Because there was no refuge at that time, so we wanted to do something about it.
19:18So these flats were council flats that were empty at the time.
19:22We needed to try and make it as best we could for families fleeing domestic violence.
19:29I'm just remembering the huge sofa that was so heavy and trying to lift up stairs, the five or six
19:36of us.
19:36That was just horrendous.
19:39We were all volunteers at the time.
19:41It was an uphill battle in terms of the resistance.
19:45Men were critical of us doing it.
19:48But I felt that children should not be growing up witnessing behaviour of their parents.
19:57Because it has a long-lasting effect.
20:05When Arlene Fraser came here, it must have been quite daunting.
20:12A number of times the abused person returns to the partner.
20:17Just because they don't see themselves with an alternative or the confidence to move on.
20:24We have to be patient.
20:25But, of course, I worried about a woman returning to the abuser.
20:29That that would be the last time they return to the abuser.
20:48We discovered Arlene was beginning to make inquiries with solicitors about potential divorce.
20:55On the day that Arlene went missing, she had an appointment with her solicitor but hadn't turned up.
21:02So, Nat Fraser was most certainly a person of interest.
21:06There was a history there that had to be a focus for us.
21:13So, clearly, his movements were critical.
21:19At the time of Arlene's disappearance, Nat Fraser was on bail for an attempted murder.
21:24One of his bail conditions was that he had to live elsewhere to the home address at 2 Smith Street.
21:29He was staying with his business partner.
21:32It was essential that we alibied his movements that day.
21:38What we learned from speaking to his work colleagues, examining phone records, was that this looked like just another typical
21:47day at work for Nat.
21:48He ran a fruit and veg business.
21:51He turned up around about 7 in the morning, teamed up with a van boy.
21:58Around about 5 past 9 in the morning, he parked up the lorry, went to a nearby kiosk, pre-mobile
22:05phone days, and called a lady.
22:10And he engaged her in a conversation that lasted through till 9.42.
22:16He also parked the lorry in one of the few areas that had CCTV.
22:23They then carried on delivering until the end of the working day, around 6 p.m.
22:28His van boy pretty much had eyes on Nat from the start of the day through to the end of
22:33the day.
22:34So, in terms of an alibi, it doesn't get much better.
22:40Particularly the phone call that he made, which was overlaying the period of time where we think Arlene disappeared.
22:48Almost to the minute, it looked very unlikely that he had the opportunity to be near Smith Street physically.
22:57It emerged that Elgin businessman Nat Fraser was on bail, having appeared in court a number of weeks ago charged
23:03with attempting to murder his estranged wife.
23:05Police said he was cooperating fully and was extremely concerned about Mrs Fraser's disappearance.
23:14I spoke to Nat at the police station.
23:18I remember him saying, I wonder if she's found my stash of money.
23:22So Nat described a hiding place in the house, in the bedroom, where he admitted that he had money.
23:29It was several hundred pounds.
23:32And when we went up to the house to look at this hiding place, there was no money.
23:40So the suggestion from Nat was that she's obviously disappeared with my money.
23:44So that added to the intrigue.
23:49Arlene's under huge stress.
23:53She's been through terrible experience.
23:56Has she actually just taken time out and gone somewhere?
24:08What I really want is for Arlene to get in touch with us, to let us know that she's at
24:14least safe and well.
24:16We're all puzzled as to what's happened to her.
24:21There were three possibilities here that we were looking at.
24:25We had the possibility that Arlene had indeed gone missing of her own volition.
24:31We had the possibility that she'd gone missing through perhaps a medical condition or suicide.
24:38And then you've got the third possibility, which is the criminal element in terms of abduction or more sinister murder.
24:45We can't understand why this has happened.
24:50We can't get a lead in any direction at all.
24:53It's just one clue that she's all right.
24:56I can't understand that she can leave the children.
25:00I can't understand.
25:01We had no witnesses.
25:03We had no crime scene.
25:05We had no CCTV.
25:07The absence of these clues that you might expect to have is daunting.
25:13We're keen to ensure that no stone was unturned.
25:27In 1998, I was a senior reporter with the Northern Scott newspaper in Elgin.
25:33It was a busy newsroom right in the centre of Elgin.
25:37We always got lots of callers and people popping in with lots of stories.
25:41I know it's a cliche to say, you know, things like this don't happen in Elgin.
25:47But it was a complete mystery.
25:49It was almost like a crime without any evidence.
25:52The police had no real lines of inquiry.
25:56It just seemed to be quite perplexing.
26:03There was a search organised by the police.
26:06Police in Elgin are to step up their efforts to trace missing mother Arlene Fraser,
26:11who vanished last week.
26:12Detectives are to concentrate their enquiries in and around the town tomorrow.
26:19Everybody assembled at the community centre, which is just about five minutes away.
26:23And then it focused mainly on the Cooper Park here,
26:27because the river Lossie runs through the park.
26:29And if we spread out along the roadway here,
26:32to the perimeter of the Burrowbriggs Road Wall,
26:35up at the riverbank.
26:38They just had us stretched out across the grass,
26:41just looking for any personal effects that may have come from Arlene.
26:48There was divers in the river as well.
26:51Over 300 people attended that search.
26:54It was one of the biggest searches ever done involving the public.
26:59And I do recall Hector McInnes, Arlene's dad, being there.
27:04It was a father looking for his daughter.
27:06And at that stage, I was a father.
27:09So you could imagine the pain he was going through.
27:13With the local paper, you're very much a part of the community.
27:16I mean, I lived in Elgin,
27:18so the people you were writing about,
27:20they were part and parcel of your life.
27:22So I just wanted to be involved as well.
27:25I just feel like he was doing something other than just watching other people doing something, you know?
27:33There was nothing positive came out of that search.
27:37But there was still some hope, you know?
27:39There was still some hope.
27:43Police say the Arlene Fraser case will remain a missing persons inquiry until they receive information to the contrary.
27:50They accept, though, that as time goes on, fears for her safety grow.
27:54My dad didn't want me to take part in his search.
27:58I thanked everybody.
28:00Genuinely thanked them.
28:02It was just good to actually physically see that it wasn't just us that was looking for Arlene.
28:08I was then taken into his little room, and all the press came in.
28:13And then there was the Pressing Journal, and even in Northern Scots, you know, all the local ones.
28:19And I was so glad.
28:21I just thought, right, they're all here, they're all behind us.
28:24And then in the corner, Charlie Gall, Daily Record.
28:28And I thought, this is serious.
28:33This is going beyond Elgin.
28:40I'm Charlie Gall, and I worked for the Scottish Daily Record in Aberdeen.
28:44I always wanted to work for the Daily Record.
28:47I admired the way they covered the big stories.
28:51They were the biggest selling newspaper in the country at that time, shifting, you know, nearly a million copies a
28:58day.
28:59Every newspaper in Scotland was interested in the Arlene Fraser case.
29:03Despite extensive inquiries, they're no closer to discovering what has happened to Arlene Fraser.
29:09It wasn't just a local story.
29:11You had national newspapers, national TV, radio stations, all involved.
29:17Rampian police, members of the RAF, and civilian mountain rescue teams are searching the area surrounding her home.
29:24It wasn't always pleasant for the family to have to deal with that.
29:28But I think they appreciated that the press were motivated by trying to help.
29:34It was tough.
29:36And sometimes you feel you want to just pull her back.
29:39She's your sister.
29:41But at the same time, you realise that it's the only way to try and get information to find her.
29:53After the police had been in, we did get into Smith Street.
29:58There was my mum, my dad, my husband, and my dad's wife.
30:05And that came in about really, really quickly.
30:09He wanted to be in the house.
30:14I was actually glad that he was in our company, because you could watch him.
30:22And he did look a little bit teary.
30:25My mum said, you'll have to pull yourself together because the kids are coming in.
30:30So we picked the kids up, took them to the house.
30:37They have their own beds.
30:38Toys are here.
30:40Let's just keep this normal.
30:42It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.
30:48I'll never forget.
30:50I'll just never forget their faces as they walked through the door.
30:56They just looked so bewildered.
31:00Lost.
31:02I thought, this is not the work of Arlene.
31:11There's just no way that she would do this.
31:17I just had a horrible, horrible feeling.
31:20I just felt really scared.
31:32Around about nine days after Arlene went missing,
31:37there was an event in the family home at 2 Smith Street
31:40that became a real curiosity and line of inquiry in itself.
31:45And that was the discovery by a family member
31:48of Arlene's engagement ring, wedding ring and eternity ring.
31:53I found them in the bathroom on a wooden dowel.
31:57And they obviously hadn't been there before
31:59because where the dowel was situated was just above the sink
32:04and everybody who was in that house was using the bathroom.
32:09Dad just couldn't believe it,
32:10that they had suddenly appeared from nowhere.
32:19One of the things I was looking for on the 28th of April
32:22was Arlene's rings
32:24because that would have been significant.
32:28I am convinced that the rings were not in 2 Smith Street
32:33on the night that Arlene went missing.
32:35One afternoon, when Nat was in the house,
32:39they were suddenly there.
32:41Whoever put them there obviously got them from somewhere,
32:45but I wouldn't like to say where.
32:50There seemed very limited explanation other than Nat had some involvement
32:56in placing the rings there.
32:59The question then is, why?
33:02What does this tell us?
33:06This was crucial because it seemed to imply that Nat somehow had access to the wedding rings,
33:13so that can only mean that he had seen Arlene before she disappeared.
33:21It was almost as if they had been placed there to add weight to the fact that,
33:26oh, she's left her wedding rings, she's walked away from her marriage,
33:28she's walked away from her husband.
33:31Because remember, you know, he's not a suspect,
33:34because at the critical times she went missing,
33:36his alibi was absolutely watertight.
33:39but he may well have been involved in the planning of the crime.
33:51It's absolutely frowned upon now,
33:54but it wasn't uncommon in those days to put witnesses of interest
33:58into the public eye to see how they performed.
34:01How is he going to respond under pressure?
34:07I met Nat Fraser at the police station,
34:10and the press conference was literally a two-minute walk.
34:14I would remember it well, because he wanted a cigarette before he went in,
34:17but he was nervous, very nervous.
34:22I'd like to take this opportunity to appeal to anyone with information
34:25as to the current fairabouts of my wife Arlene
34:27to contact the incident room at Elgin or the local police office.
34:31He didn't act, erm, really, really worried, you know.
34:37He did a bit of paper, it was very wooden.
34:41Arlene, if you're watching this, then please get in touch,
34:44just to let us all know that you're safe and well.
34:47The children are missing you terribly.
34:50If you do not want to come home just now,
34:52at least let us know you're all right.
34:57It was kind of a reluctant compliance.
35:00He felt he had to do it.
35:01His image was such he had no choice but not to do it.
35:05There were those who were very much convinced that Nat was a family man,
35:09somebody who cared deeply about his wife and children.
35:11And also, he had a public persona, which was, he was a good guy,
35:15he was a cheeky chappy, he was somebody to be trusted.
35:18People find it hard to believe that that person would then be involved in something really sinister.
35:25I was interested in getting in behind who the real Nat Fraser was.
35:30I just dug all these out of the loft.
35:32This is where I discovered that Nat had renamed the band that he played guitar in to the Nat Fraser
35:39band.
35:40Almost like he wasn't bothered.
35:43He was maybe hoping that his notoriety would bring extra fans in.
35:47This was the husband playing in a band on a Saturday night without a care in the world.
35:52And the rest of the world were worried about where his wife is.
36:00It would be fair to say that there were two schools of thought developing.
36:05Those who thought that Nat was being unfairly treated and regarded.
36:11And those who thought that Nat was clearly behind Arlene's disappearance.
36:16That made our officers' tasks doubly difficult because often they got resistance by those who thought, you know, you're hounding
36:25Nat.
36:26Nat's the victim here, not Arlene.
36:33When you go from hours to days and then into weeks, you think this is not good.
36:41There's only one avenue left and we don't want to explore it.
36:53Since she disappeared, there have been no reported sightings.
36:56Officers are still working on the case.
36:58They've spoken to over a thousand people and have taken 600 statements.
37:02I was seconded up to Elgin for, well, I thought it would be a matter of days initially.
37:08That days turned into weeks and months.
37:12And ultimately, eventually, I ended up moving my family up to Elgin because I was so committed to the investigation.
37:20So it did have a huge impact on our lives personally.
37:28Detectives are convinced that somebody in this town knows exactly what happened to Arlene Fraser six months ago.
37:34They hope tonight's BBC Scotland Frontline programme will jog people's memories and possibly prompt a vital witness to come forward.
37:47It's six months to the day since Arlene Fraser disappeared from her home here in Elgin.
37:53She was last seen by her children standing in the doorway in her dressing gown as she waved them off
37:59to school.
38:01Since then, there have been no positive sightings of Arlene.
38:04In 1998, I was an investigative reporter on BBC Scotland's Frontline Scotland programme,
38:10which was a weekly investigative series that went out in prime time and we did all the big stories in
38:18Scotland.
38:19This is how police found the house on the day of Arlene's disappearance.
38:24This was an important story because it was one that had really captured the imagination of the Scottish public.
38:30So we sort of started at the beginning piecing together the information as we knew it.
38:35There were no signs of a panic or a struggle, but equally no clues that Arlene was planning to leave.
38:42When we came to talk to people in the local community about what they thought had happened to Arlene,
38:48nobody was short of an opinion.
38:50Excuse me. Hello. We're from the BBC.
38:53We're making a programme about Arlene Fraser's disappearance.
38:56The rumour mill was just absolutely rife with theories.
39:00No mother, with the love that she had for her children, would leave them without good reasons.
39:04I think she's been murdered.
39:06What do you think?
39:07Well, I think she's just went into hiding.
39:09I think it was just too much for her, the break-up of her marriage.
39:14I was quite surprised that still so many people, even nearly six months after her disappearance,
39:22thought that maybe she was still alive and well somewhere.
39:25I don't think she's dead.
39:26I think she's probably just suddenly thought that time to go and we're picking up sometime.
39:31And somebody disappears like that, like, you know, someone knows something.
39:35Nobody knows nothing. Somebody knows something.
39:38And I can.
39:41Clearly, there was a desire for the production team to get access to Nat Fraser.
39:47Hello, I'm Nat Fraser. I'm the husband of Arlene.
39:50I said hello there. Fuck it. I didn't do that.
39:54And again, from an investigative point of view, it gave us another opportunity to look at him and see how
40:00he performed.
40:01And just take your time doing it.
40:05Mm-hm.
40:06Do you up here? We speak quickly up here anyway, don't we?
40:09I'll slow you down.
40:10That's all right, all right, because we do.
40:14I was surprised that Nat was open to being interviewed, but he already had quite a solid alibi.
40:21And I think he was hoping to just get through this interview by giving a good account of himself.
40:29So the whole time you were living in the house, things were OK between you?
40:34You had arguments with us, things were OK, eh?
40:36There must have been some unhappiness, though, because the month before Arlene's disappearance, the police were called to the house.
40:44That's right, eh? Mm-hm.
40:48He sat there and he let me ask any number of questions that I think perhaps he wasn't that comfortable
40:55answering.
40:56You were charged with the attempted murder of Arlene.
41:00That's correct.
41:01That must have put an intolerable strain on your relationship.
41:06I'd say he'd probably put an end to the relationship. Mm-hm.
41:10Surely that was a sign that things weren't altogether happy there?
41:14Well, it was after then that I moved out and went into my business partners.
41:18Do you think you were prone to flying off the handle?
41:22No, I wouldn't say I was prone to it, no.
41:25No.
41:27How exceptional would you say that was?
41:29I'd say it was very exceptional.
41:32I didn't give others.
41:36I've been accused of violence before.
41:42We spent quite a long time trying to work out how to get to the point where I could just
41:47ask him really directly whether he had anything to do with it.
41:50Because you can't ask that question twice. You can't fluff it.
41:57Did you have anything to do with her disappearance?
41:59Nothing at all. No.
42:02Mm.
42:06I remember at the time thinking, when I asked him that question, he looks away briefly.
42:12And I think that's a tell.
42:14I think that's a tell when people are lying to you.
42:17And I thought it then and I think it now, watching it back nearly 30 years later.
42:22Do you think Arlene's still alive?
42:25I live in hope. Yes, I do. Yes.
42:34Grampian police are relaunching their inquiry with a hotline and new poster campaign.
42:39They'll also re-interview witnesses in a determined effort to solve the mystery of the woman who simply vanished into
42:45thin air.
42:45Your reliance, I think, on the cooperation from the public was huge because very rarely do the police solve crimes.
42:53It's the public that solve crimes.
42:56Police are now pouring over 1,000 statements.
42:59And there was one piece of information which became a critical, new, fresh line of inquiry that came out.
43:08Tonight, the latest twist in the search for Arlene.
43:14Detectives are trying to trace a missing car they believe could be linked with the mother of two's disappearance.
43:20The information came in as an overheard conversation in a pub.
43:25And the review team that looked at that piece of potentially gossip revealed that a close associate of Nat Fraser,
43:34Hector Dick,
43:35had been involved in a very shady purchase of a vehicle in Elgin the night before Arlene went missing.
43:45Hector Dick was a local farmer.
43:47He's a close friend of Nat Fraser.
43:50Nat Fraser was his best man at his wedding.
43:52The beige Mark II Ford Fiesta is distinctive.
43:56It was fitted with pepperpot alloy wheels, a wide-bore exhaust and twin headlamp conversion.
44:02That line of inquiry led us to Kevin Ritchie.
44:06He's a local who was known to buy and sell in cars,
44:10who had indeed sold a Ford Fiesta to Hector Dick.
44:15£400 for the vehicle, £50 to keep quiet.
44:20That Ford Fiesta was delivered out to Hector's farm by Kevin Ritchie.
44:26And he told us Nat Fraser was also present within the farmhouse when the vehicle was delivered.
44:36When we spoke to Hector Dick, expecting and hoping he would confirm that he had bought the vehicle,
44:42he absolutely stonewalled us and denied any such transaction had taken place
44:48and accused the car dealer of being a bare-faced liar.
44:52So it was critical to the investigation that we did everything in our powers to locate that vehicle.
44:59What can anyone tell us about that car since the 27th of April onwards?
45:03Somebody out there has got the answer to that.
45:07The vehicle being highlighted as being of significance sent shockwaves through Elgin.
45:13It ramped the whole investigation back up again.
45:17And then, of course, the focus moved on to Hector Dick.
45:21It would have been quickly apparent in a smallish place like Elgin,
45:27the police were spending a lot of time on his farm all of a sudden.
45:35I went to see him. I was on his farm and he came out to meet me.
45:40And there was a sudden thunder and lightning storm.
45:44It was so creepy.
45:45Hector Dick came across to me as a doer, stubborn farmer.
45:51There's not a lot of flamboyance about him.
45:54A hard guy to speak to.
45:57And I don't think he would say anything without thinking about it very deeply.
46:07Officers had the horrible job of going through pig farm, pig swill and everything.
46:12It was thoroughly searched.
46:14There were helicopters, cadaver dogs.
46:17All sorts of techniques were used and they turned up absolutely nothing.
46:26And it took us to a point where we had to resort to additional techniques to actually get to the
46:31truth of the matter.
46:36So one tactic that was suggested was Kevin Ritchie who sold the car to Hector Dick.
46:42It was to wear a wiretap and to have a meeting with Hector Dick.
46:49And it took place in a forestry car park where they could meet at night.
47:02We wanted Hector Dick to acknowledge during the recording, during the meeting, that he did in fact buy the vehicle.
47:08And we also had a listening post where you were listening in live time.
47:12So I was part of that listening team.
47:18So you can imagine the excitement around what potentially could come out of this conversation.
47:23The adrenaline was flowing that night.
47:26The sense of anticipation was huge.
47:31But Hector Dick, he loved to convey this impression of him being a simple, daft farmer.
47:39But he was far from that.
47:42Hector, in typical fashion, was extremely cautious, wasn't very conversational.
47:47However, he did concede he had indeed bought the car.
47:56But ultimately, he was just wanting to reassure Kevin Ritchie, the police know nothing, say nothing.
48:04There was no great revelation as to where the vehicle was.
48:08However, we did achieve the objective of tangibly linking Hector Dick to the purchase of the vehicle,
48:14which obviously previously he'd denied completely.
48:19So that then led the Crown Office to have the confidence to charge him with an attempt to pervert a
48:24course of justice.
48:27Arriving at Dingwall Sheriff Court, 44-year-old Hector Dick knew he could be facing prison.
48:32Hector Dick initially pled not guilty.
48:35However, when the Crown sought to introduce the covert recordings of the meeting between him and Kevin Ritchie,
48:42he changed his plea to guilty and he was subsequently sentenced a year imprisonment.
48:47What he didn't do was acknowledge any relationship between the car and Arlene Fraser.
48:53And so Hector Dick continued to deny any involvement in the disappearance of Arlene.
49:04The cherry blossom was just coming out on the day that Arlene Fraser was last seen alive.
49:09New leads continue to emerge in a case which has baffled the police and public here.
49:14But one year on, if Arlene Fraser has been murdered, as many believe, her killer or killers remain at large.
49:26After the year, there is still no real progress in terms of an arrest.
49:30However, they still had the attempted murder charge existing against Nat.
49:35Now Nat might have thought that's never going to go anywhere because Arlene's disappeared.
49:39She can't stand up in court and convince a jury that I was responsible for it.
49:43But the prosecution, obviously keen to maintain the pressure on Nat at that point, decided to prosecute.
49:51The husband of the missing Elgin woman, Arlene Fraser, has appeared at the High Court.
49:55Nat Fraser is charged with assaulting and attempting to murder her in the months before she vanished from their home.
50:03Nat decided to plead guilty with the charge being reduced.
50:07It was batted down to a serious assault charge.
50:10I feel absolutely sick, sadness at what we have had to listen to today. It's extremely distressing.
50:22I remember feeling quite frustrated and quite disappointed that it was reduced because she was seconds from death.
50:33He was convicted of her serious assault and received an 18-month sentence.
50:38His QC, Neil Murray, said that his client had had an inexcusable loss of temper leading to actions that were
50:44out of character.
50:53So, from this article, the Defence Council said it was an inexcusable loss of temper leading to actions which were
50:59out of character.
51:01In response to the judge's assertion that he recognised that the assault was out of character, Carol, Arlene's sister, completely
51:09dismissed it.
51:11A complete load of rubbish and lies and more lies.
51:18You'll often hear people describe incidences of violence against women and girls as being isolated incidents.
51:23There's no such thing as an isolated incident of violence against women and girls.
51:30Tonight, 50 women in Scotland will leave home, fleeing from violent partners.
51:35As night falls, thousands of others will wait with fear and anxiety for the key to turn in the lock,
51:41dreading the thought of yet another night of abuse.
51:44In every society in the world, women have never been treated as fully equal.
51:48It's very difficult for people to accept quite how pervasive this particular dynamic of women being hurt still is, even
51:55now.
51:59But we were nowhere near recognising that at the time, back when Arlene went missing.
52:03We are talking about 1998.
52:06It used to just be put down to, well, it's a domestic, it's between husband and wife.
52:12Domestic abuse was very much viewed as a private matter, rather than the widespread social problem that it is.
52:20More than 17,000 contacted women's aid last year for help.
52:25Many of them had put up with years of domestic violence.
52:29A very, very effective way for an abuser to gaslight the victim is just be nice to everyone else.
52:35Just charm the socks off everyone else.
52:39Nobody knew the real Nat Fraser.
52:42You know, he gave this impression, so friendly, so charming.
52:51Very often, women who manage to exit abusive relationships will actually have numerous attempts to do so.
52:57We saw with Arlene, she went back to Nat initially, and then tried to leave again.
53:01At which point, she had an appointment with a divorce lawyer.
53:04All she wanted was her house, her kids.
53:06And he had said, no, if you're not going to live with me, you won't be living with anybody.
53:12The only thing that freaks out controlling possessive men, more than anything else, is losing control, losing possession.
53:20If it becomes apparent that the relationship is over and the abuser cannot re-establish control,
53:24then the domestic homicide is essentially the ultimate act of control.
53:32In a statement this evening, Grampian police said they regarded their investigation into the assault as closed.
53:39But they wanted to assure Arlene Fraser's family that their commitment to finding out what happened to her would continue.
53:49The determination is still there, and we'll get to the bottom of this.
54:04So whilst Nat's in prison, we're still full-time investigating Arlene's disappearance.
54:09And we didn't rest on our laurels and say, right, he's in prison, let's hold off here.
54:16And then a senior prison officer, he reached out to us and said,
54:20look, he's had a couple of visits from this guy, Glenn Lucas.
54:26Glenn Lucas used to live in Elgin.
54:28He knew Nat Fraser because he had also worked for the same company.
54:34He had visited Nat Fraser whilst he was in prison.
54:38And that meeting between the two of them had been video recorded via CCTV.
54:46But the CCTV tape didn't have audio.
54:50And so you had this silent video of the two of them in a deep conversation.
54:57How good would it be to know what they were discussing?
55:00Because it looked like they weren't speaking about beer and football.
55:06So it was given to a lip reader who had previously worked with other police forces.
55:13You're on tenderhooks, you're hoping with every sinew in your body that you're going to get that breakthrough.
55:26She eventually came back to us with an assessment of what was said in that conversation.
55:34The lip reader transcripts were discussing how a body was disposed of.
55:40Removing her limbs, about pulling out her teeth.
55:49There was distressing detail about what you would only presume was Arlene.
55:57There was reference to the vehicle which clearly excited us in the sense that that tied the purchase of the
56:04Fiesta the night before and Hector and Dick into that.
56:11We knew that on the day she went missing, that that was alibied.
56:15And so he wasn't physically the individual who was responsible for the actual execution of the crime.
56:23Who better to involve than your closest confidants, if you like?
56:28And that was very much Hector Dick and Glenn Lucas.
56:35And there was one particular time where we knew that the three met not long before Arlene went missing.
56:42So it was very easy to see a relationship there that could have perhaps been part of a tripartite plan.
56:53So there was a confidence in the Crown Office for us to arrest and charge those three individuals with the
56:59murder of Arlene.
57:02It's been a major development in the inquiry into the disappearance of the Elgin mother, Arlene Fraser.
57:07Within the past half hour, the Crown Office has announced that three men have been indicted for her murder.
57:12They're Arlene's estranged husband Nat, his friend Hector Dick and English businessman Glenn Lucas.
57:19It was an amazing feeling in the sense of achievement.
57:23We've devoted hours and hours desperate to bring answers for the family.
57:32I was very proud of the police, how hard they had worked to get this far.
57:37Three men have been charged, this is final.
57:44Finally, you think this is going to reach a conclusion.
57:47The way it then changed and took a dramatic turn, I don't think that was expected at that point.
57:54Glenn Lucas walks from the court after today's dramatic developments.
57:59Both charges, in fact, will be contested with the utmost vigor.
58:04Lord Turnbull said he'd have fainted if he'd known about the extra evidence.
58:09My fear is that we get to the end and it all goes wrong.
58:14The fight will go on. Us will the fight to get to the truth.
58:16OK?
58:18The jury were probably a bit confused about what was going on, but we knew exactly what was happening.
58:23Hector Dick was turning against his mate, and it was dynamite.
58:29Good day.傍ers,
58:57people crock a little bit. Two people call theirir.
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