Alistair Wilson case: The doorstep murder that remains one of Britain’s longest-running unsolved cases | British News

Imagine you are four years old. Your father is just reading you a bedtime story. The next time he lies on the doorstep of your family home and breathes his last.

Blood oozes from gunshot wounds on his face and body and pools in the hallway as the innocent eyes of a little boy stare from the nearby stairs, unable to comprehend that he is witnessing an event that will change his life forever.

“I still have the image of my father in my mind in nightmares,” says Andrew Wilson, now 24, as he relives the horror of his childhood, two decades after the gangland attack that killed his father Alistair .

Warning: Contains descriptions that some readers may find disturbing

Andrew is silent as he shows me a picture of him and his father, the bank manager, taken a few hours before the fateful evening of November 28, 2004.

The father and son’s beaming smiles, captured on a grainy film camera, resemble old photos that usually gather dust in carefully read family photo albums. The picture was taken during a relaxed walk in the forest and shows the two of them wearing blue outdoor jackets and holding hands. Andrew comes up to his father’s waist and rests his head on his arm.

But that’s all Andrew has left. It is the last living picture of his father.

The shooter disappeared into the night

The contrast between the family fun on a Sunday afternoon and the brutal violence that would follow that same day is eerie.

The murder of Alistair Wilson is one of Britain’s longest-running unsolved cases.

Even the smartest and most experienced investigators were baffled by the fact that a gunman in a sleepy Highland town would carry out such a brutal execution before disappearing into the night and never being caught.

No motive was ever determined, although in recent years police became involved in a planning dispute across the street.

Andrew has to come to terms with his father’s absence.

“Many of my friends’ fathers were very good. My uncles all tried to influence me, but it wasn’t the same. “I remember my grandpa teaching me how to kick a soccer ball properly… that was something my dad would teach me,” he says.

With a touch of Highland voice, he reflects on the small but significant moments he missed, such as the “first legal pint” with his father on his 18th birthday.

“I blocked out a lot of my childhood memories,” he says.

The knock on the door

It all started on Crescent Road, a long side street in Nairn. Victorian three-story houses stand near a church, while a nearby beach overlooks the Moray Firth. Crime was rare – there had not been a murder in Nairn for almost 20 years.

Alistair was upstairs with his two little boys, getting them ready for bed, when there was a knock on the door. His wife Veronica answered a stranger who asked him about her husband by name.

Envelope marked “Paul”.

Nothing about this interaction seemed to raise suspicion or raise alarm, and Alistair left the boys to go downstairs.

The stranger handed him a blank blue envelope marked “Paul” and he closed the door. But confused, Alistair opened it again to ask questions. He was shot dead on sight in a gangland attack.

Andrew talks about the family’s plans to visit his father’s grave to commemorate the anniversary of his murder.

“He would have turned 50 this year,” he says. His tone is matter-of-fact, but his eyes wander.

“The whole family came together and marked it.”

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A planning dispute

Over the years there has been much speculation in Nairn about the motives behind the murder. Could it have something to do with Alistair’s career at the bank? Could it have been a killer? Andrew says the worst was when his mother was considered a suspect.

“It was difficult when people said it was mom,” he says, emotion evident in his voice for the first time. With a protective voice, Andrew slides forward in his seat.

“I got in trouble at school for fighting because someone said it was my mother,” he says. “I had already lost one parent and my other was portrayed as something I knew they were not. That was my biggest struggle.”

The owner remains the key witness

Andrew is full of praise for how his mother has handled being the focus of such hurtful gossip while also being mother and father to her two sons. “She did a great job,” he says.

In recent years police have believed that a possible motive could be linked to a structural objection Alastair had to the construction of a large terrace at the pub opposite his house. His defiance was made public three days before his murder.

Could a planning complaint actually trigger such violence?

Police stressed that the venue’s then owner, who now lives in Canada, was a key witness and not a suspect.

“More and more dark”

Relations between Alistair Wilson’s family and Police Scotland were usually close. There was no reason to question the strategy and the officers’ ability to do their jobs properly. When investigators told them 18 months ago that they would be making an arrest, they were thrilled – it finally seemed like justice could be served. But it was not to be – the police fell silent, and after pressing them for an answer, they learned that the arrest had been overturned.

From then on, things “got murkier,” says Andrew, without any explanation. He and his family feel “let down” by the police, he says, and have no confidence they will ever catch the killer.

They are now calling on Police Chief Commissioner of Scotland Jo Farrell, appointed in October 2023, to resign and take responsibility for her “callous” actions after she repeatedly refused to meet the family.

“Obliged to answer”

“If their forces have failed us for 20 years and they can’t get there, how are they going to get us anywhere?” asks Andrew. Police Scotland did not respond to questions from Sky News about the police chief’s future.

Sky News confronted Jo Farrell when she arrived for a meeting in Glasgow on December 1st.

“I’m not going to resign,” she said when asked if she was resigning because she “couldn’t get it under control.”

“I am committed to ensuring that we get answers and find those responsible for the murder.”

She walked away when questioned further about her competence, or lack thereof, as the Wilson family sees it.

New head detective in office

The new head detective Investigate the murder from scratch has said she is committed to finding answers to solve the case.

Detective Chief Superintendent Suzanne Chow, who has met the family in person, admitted she was currently “in no position” to arrest anyone and admitted the various investigations over the years had been “protracted”.

DCS Chow defended her boss’s decision to revoke the arrest.

“The boss is not callous,” she said.

“We are a checkbox”

While this Dispute between the family and the police There are still questions about whether Andrew and his family will ever find closure.

“All we can do is wait,” says Andrew. “We are a checkbox for the police. Since the arrest was overturned, it has become clear that we are just a number to them.”

Photos by the Wilson family