Louise Tiffney: Judges explain bid to try son for mother's murder

Appeal court judges have published details of their decision to allow a man to be tried for a second time for the murder of his mother.

Sean Flynn was cleared in 2005 of killing Louise Tiffney, who was last seen near her Edinburgh flat in 2002.

But prosecutors were given permission for a second murder trial after her body was found in Longniddry, East Lothian, in 2017.

Flynn, 37, was found dead in Spain last year.

A report outlining the judges' decision to allow the the second prosecution, dated 9 January 2020, was published on Tuesday.

It stated that whilst the Crown's case was circumstantial, there was sufficient evidence, and the legal tests had been met, to allow him to be tried again for murder under double jeopardy laws.

Louise Tiffney's disappearance in 2002 sparked a murder hunt that become one of Scotland's most notorious unsolved cases.

Flynn, who was then 18, reported her missing the next day, and the search that followed was one of the largest in Scottish police history.

Ms Tiffney disappeared four days before Flynn was due to appear in court accused of causing the deaths of a cousin and friend by dangerous driving.

He admitted crashing a high-powered BMW while speeding through West Lothian and was sentenced to three years and nine months in a young offenders institution.

It was initially thought that Ms Tiffney may have fled her home under the pressure of Flynn facing imprisonment and her sister Lulu grieving for her son.

But in the investigation that followed, it emerged that Flynn and his mother argued frequently - and had done so on the night that Ms Tiffney was last seen.

Flynn claimed she had "stormed out" of their home, but she had not taken her keys, bank cards or cash, or made childcare arrangements for her six-year-old daughter.

During their investigation, officers found blood matching Ms Tiffney's DNA in the boot of a car that Flynn drove, along with mud and vegetation.

Mobile phone records also showed he was in East Lothian when he claimed to be in Edinburgh.

Flynn was still in Polmont Young Offenders' Institution in February 2004, serving his sentence for the fatal car crash, when he was charged with his mother's murder.

During a 22-day trial at the High Court in Perth the following year, prosecutors alleged that he snapped and killed Ms Tiffney after arguing with her over the driving case and over his relationship with an older woman.

But Flynn's defence team argued that Ms Tiffney could have taken her own life, and the jury found the charges against him not proven.

After Ms Tiffney's body was found in April 2017, prosecutors sought permission to set aside the acquittal and prosecute Flynn again for her murder.

The discovery was made by a cyclist near Gosford House in East Lothian.

Flynn was then tracked down in Berlin, where he had made a new home, and he was returned to Scotland.

The laws on double jeopardy had been changed in 2011 to allow someone to be tried again on the same charges.

In January 2020, three judges agreed to set aside the previous verdict and allow a fresh prosecution to take place.

Flynn was accused of murder and attempting to defeat the ends of justice by concealing his mother's body in the boot of a car before driving to woods and disposing of it.

That trial had been due to start last October but Flynn - who had denied the charges - failed to appear at the High Court in Livingston.

A warrant for his arrest was issued but days later his lawyer Aamer Anwar said he had been advised by police in Spain that Flynn had been found dead after taking his own life.