By Alan Wilson

A DUNDEE man wrongly convicted of killing a wedding guest nine years ago held a champagne celebration with his family last night after hearing that his name had finally been cleared by the Appeal Court in Edinburgh.

Stewart Kidd (27), Balunie Crescent, says he can now finally start to reclaim his life after three judges ruled that he was the victim of a miscarriage of justice when he was jailed for seven years for the culpable homicide of Thomas Andrew Blair at a wedding reception in the Drumgeith Bar on March 12, 1996.

Overall he spent four and a half years behind bars.

The champagne had been on ice for eight years after Stewart’s dad Ron (Rocky) was given it on his 40th birthday and vowed not to open it until his son’s name had been cleared.

Yesterday’s announcement almost exactly nine years after the fatal incident finally paved the way for the cork to be popped.

“I heard it on the radio, my sister Samantha said she heard something about it on the one o’clock news but she wasn’t really sure,” Stewart said.

“I listened to the two o’clock news and I couldn’t believe it. I’m still trying to get my head round it.

“I haven’t had a drink yet but I’m going straight round to my dad’s house to open that bottle of champagne he’s been keeping for me.”

Stewart had always maintained his innocence but the Crown case against him, despite no forensic evidence to link him to either the knife or the deceased, was believed by the jury.

His co-accused Jamie Alan Green was also found guilty and was imprisoned for nine years and has since admitted that he alone was responsible for Mr Blair’s death.

Nine years and two appeals later, however, it came to light through an investigation by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) that the Crown had withheld statements made to the police by a crucial witness, bride Pamela Carlyle, who was the sister of the deceased, from the jury.

In three separate statements, Mrs Carlyle initially claimed Kidd had produced a large knife from the rear of his jeans and stabbed his victim in the back.

In a later statement, Mrs Carlyle told police she had got over her grief a bit more and was able to see things more clearly.

She now remembered that a second man with a knife was with Kidd and that it was not Kidd who stabbed Mr Blair.

She said the man, whom she later identified as Green, stabbed the victim twice in the side and once in the back.

Later she said she saw Green stab him twice but did not see what Kidd did.

In evidence at the trial, she said she saw two men, both armed with knives, approach her brother and the one she identified as Kidd made a punching motion at him but she could not say that it had landed.

Lawyers acting for Stewart appealed the conviction and he was allowed out on bail until the appeal was held 18 months later.

He was sent back behind bars, however, when it was thrown out.

He was kept in prison pending a second appeal after Green’s admission but that, too, was dismissed by the judges as they found Green not to be a credible or reliable witness.

The case was referred back to the Appeal Court for a third time by the SCCRC, which was set up to investigate alleged miscarriages of justice, after the Crown was forced to hand over all the evidence it had collected before the original trial.

The commission thought the material in the statements would have cast doubt on the conviction of Mr Kidd and should have been disclosed to the defence team.

Lord Kirkwood, who heard the latest appeal with Lady Cosgrove and Lord Philip, said there were “material contradictions and inconsistencies” between the statements Mrs Carlyle gave to police prior to the trial and the evidence given by her in court.

He added, “We are satisfied that the failure to disclose her police statements resulted in a miscarriage of justice.

“It is common ground that those statements and precognitions were never disclosed to those representing Kidd prior to, or in the course of, the trial.”

Stewart says the four and a half years he spent behind bars in young offenders’ institutions at Polmont and Dumfries and in prison in Edinburgh and Perth, had left an indelible mark on his character, which had changed him from an ordinary boy who kept himself to himself into a harder, more cynical man.

“Prison was difficult, especially knowing that I didn’t do it.

“I made friends, you’ve just got to get on with it, but now I’ve no faith in the justice system.

“I kept telling people I was innocent and they didn’t believe me. I didn’t believe that I would be able to clear my name.”

Mr Kidd said, “I told the truth from the start but nobody believed me.

“I was sorry for what happened and for what people have gone through but I wasn’t involved.

“It was a bad thing that happened to the guy and they’ve still lost somebody in their family, but I’ve lost those years and I’ve missed my daughter Kallae growing up.

“She was conceived when I was out on bail for the appeal.

“I didn’t know Jamie Green before that night and I don’t hold any grudge against him, he tried his best to get me out.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do now.

“I can’t get jobs because of the conviction and it’s hard to even get into the right mind to even try to get a job. I’ll just play it by ear.

“I’d just like to thank my solicitor Brian Fitzpatrick and my counsel Charles Boag Thomson for believing in me through all this.”

Rocky said his faith in God helped him believe that his son would be cleared.

“I have no faith in the justice system because Stewart was put in prison for something he didn’t do, but I still have my own faith.

“I believe in God and I had faith that the truth would come out.”