Evidence 'found after 25 years'

Ms McCabe's body was found nearly two weeks after she disappeared

The Templeton Woods murder trial has heard that a detective found evidence which had been lying in a police station for nearly 25 years, by chance.

Retired Det Insp Ian Kennedy said swabs from Elizabeth McCabe's body were found after a conversation with a colleague, when the case was reopened in 2003.

The 20-year-old's body was discovered in Templeton Woods, Dundee, in 1980.

Vincent Simpson, 61, of Camberley, Surrey, denies the nursery nurse's murder.

At the High Court in Edinburgh, Mr Kennedy described how Scottish police forces launched Operation Trinity, an attempt to reopen a number of "cold" investigations up and down the country.

He said this gave "fresh impetus" to the hunt for Ms McCabe's killer.

Years earlier, as a detective constable, he had worked on the murder inquiry.

Bearing in mind the stuff had been there for 25 years I was relatively pleased Ian Kennedy Retired detective

Mr Kennedy said it had remained in his mind because he passed Templeton Woods every day on his way to work.

Before he retired, he headed Tayside Police's identification branch - which is responsible for gathering potential evidence and photographing crime scenes.

He told how he had already begun to examine the contents of a large box in a former blanket store in the police headquarters, even before Operation Trinity had begun.

"I think, bearing in mind the stuff had been there for 25 years I was relatively pleased," he said.

"It was by no means a complete disaster."

He was shown the blue jumper which was covering Ms McCabe's face when she was found in the woods.

Her jeans were found by labourers working on a fly-over project on Dundee's Kingway.

Ms McCabe's jacket turned up behind a wall at a bus stop near the entrance to Camperdown Park.

All were taken to a lab in Yorkshire for tests.

'Sheer fortune'

Mr Kennedy said he became aware that some items were missing and described a "chance conversation" with a colleague who remembered that he had seen intimate swabs taken from Ms McCabe's body in a large cabinet.

"By sheer fortune, the second folder we took out was this, so it was incredibly lucky," he said.

The trial has also heard that some items remained untraced.

Ms McCabe's underwear and tights, which were found with her jacket, have since been lost.

Vincent Simpson denies murdering Ms McCabe, of Lochee in Dundee, by striking her on the head and compressing her neck.

In early 1980 he was operating a private hire taxi business from his home in Newtyle, near Dundee.

He said he has an alibi for the time when she went missing and has given the court a list of 13 names - any one of whom he claims could be the real killer.

The trial continues.