By Democrat reporter
A murder suspect told a detective he did not leave a woman’s home on the night he is accused of killing of a schoolgirl.
Robert O’Brien was arrested in November 2021 after police re-investigated the death of Caroline Glachan, 14, in August 1996.
A court heard that on being arrested, Mr O’Brien said: “I never killed her.”
O’Brien, 45, Andrew Kelly and Donna Marie Brand, both 44, deny murder.
Caroline’s body was discovered in the River Leven in Renton on 25 August 1996.
David Barr, a now retired detective constable, was one of the officers who interviewed O’Brien in 2021.
He was said to have been in a relationship with Caroline at the time of her death.
During eight hours of questioning, O’Brien said he was at the Renton home of Elizabeth Wilson, who was known as Betty.
She had arranged for her two sons to be babysat by O’Brien’s co-accused, Andrew Kelly, and his then girlfriend Sarah Jane O’Neill.
Jurors heard evidence that Ms Wilson’s son Archie, who was four-and-a-half at the time, claimed he had seen a “lassie” getting “battered” and falling into water on the date of the alleged murder.
In his interview, O’Brien said he never left the street where Ms Wilson lived.
Prosecuting counsel Alex Prentice KC put this to Mr Barr: “Throughout the interview his position was that he was in Betty Wilson’s all night and did not leave until the following morning?”
The witness replied: “Yes.”
O’Brien’s counsel Ian Duguid KC later stated to Barr that the suspect had instead remarked to police: “I never killed anyone in my life.”
But the retired detective said that was not what O’Brien initially said, although it did appear during the interview he was trying to correct his remark.
‘Some affection’
Jurors heard Kelly and the other co-accused Brand were also arrested in November 2021.
Both also insisted they had been at Ms Wilson’s home at the time of the killing.
The court was told Kelly spoke of Caroline, who lived in Bonhill, with “some affection” during his interview.
Brand meantime claimed it was “nonsense” that she and others had been witnessed leaving the property that night.
Mr Prentice went on to tell jurors that he did not intend to call any more prosecution witnesses in the case.
He also withdrew a separate charge that O’Brien assaulted Caroline on various occasions in 1996.
The three accused deny murdering Caroline at the River Leven in West Dunbartonshire on August 25 1996.
The trial, before Lord Braid, continues.