Jacqui murder charge not proven

Miss Gallagher went missing in June 1996

A jury has returned a not proven verdict on a man accused of murdering a Glasgow prostitute.

George Johnstone, 43, from Erskine, was accused of murdering 26-year-old Jacqueline Gallagher in June 1996.

He was also accused of trying to defeat the ends of justice by concealing her body after the murder.

A jury found both charges not proven by a majority. Johnstone showed no emotion as the verdicts were announced at the High Court in Glasgow.

Miss Gallagher's mother, Alice Wilson, wept when the nine women and six men of the jury delivered their verdict.

Miss Gallagher, of Glen Allan Way, in Paisley, went missing from Glasgow city centre on 24 June, 1996.

Johnstone had lodged a special defence of alibi.

He denied killing Miss Gallagher and dumping her body on a roadside near a bus stop on Dumbarton Road at Bowling.

DNA evidence

Johnstone, who still has to serve one year of a three-year jail sentence resulting from a fatal road crash, said he had begun using prostitutes after his wife left him in October 1993.

He told the court that he had sex with Miss Gallagher about twice a week for four months and was friendly with her.

Johnstone said he would meet her after work and they would chat about her personal problems in his van.

He said he had met Miss Gallagher for sex the night before she died in a flat in Newlands Road, Glasgow.

The former kitchen fitter said he last saw Miss Gallagher when he dropped her off in Glasgow's red light district on the morning of 23 June, 1996.

Traces of Johnstone's semen were found on Miss Gallagher's clothing but the jury decided that DNA evidence was insufficient to convict him of the murder.