Templeton detectives 'bugged car'

Elizabeth McCabe's body was found in Dundee in 1980

A police car was bugged in an attempt to trap a suspect into making a confession, a murder trial has heard.

Detectives from Tayside had travelled to Surrey to question Vincent Simpson about the death of Elizabeth McCabe a quarter of a century earlier.

At the time of her death part-time window cleaner Simpson had been living in the village of Newtyle, near Dundee.

Mr Simpson denies murdering Elizabeth McCabe and dumping her in Templeton Woods, Dundee, in February 1980.

He was one of a number of people interviewed by murder hunt detectives in the days following the discovery of Miss McCabe's remains in the frozen woodland.

The 20-year-old, of Lochee, Dundee, had disappeared two weeks earlier after leaving friends outside a disco in the city's Union Street.

The trial has heard how Alastair Reid, 42 - then a detective sergeant, now a detective inspector with Tayside Police - turned up on Simpson's doorstep in Camberley, Surrey about 0700 BST on 15 July, 2005, and took Simpson to nearby Woking police station for questioning.

Evidence 'tainted'

The following day Mr Simpson was driven back to Dundee where he was charged with Miss McCabe's murder.

Questioning Insp Reid, defence QC Mark Stewart claimed the plan was to arrest and charge Mr Simpson, irrespective of what happened when he was interviewed.

The lawyer asked if a police car had been fitted with tape recording equipment, in preparation for the journey back.

"At no time in that eight hour journey did he say anything incriminating or anything that compromised his position of complete and utter innocence," said Mr Stewart.

Insp Reid agreed: "That is correct."

Earlier the jury at the High Court in Edinburgh watched video footage of the three hour question-and-answer session in Woking.

In it, Mr Simpson denied all knowledge of what happened to the nursery nurse. When the detectives confronted him with DNA results he suggested the evidence was "tainted".

Inspector Reid - addressing Mr Simpson as "Vinny" during the interview - asked if he was accusing police of planting evidence and Mr Simpson replied: "It doesn't happen, does it?"

Mr Simpson denies murder and claims he has an alibi for the night Elizabeth disappeared.

He has also produced a list of 13 names which he claims are more likely suspects.

The trial continues.