The family of a Kinross-shire woman who died suddenly in Israel say a post-mortem report has strengthened their belief she was beaten to death.
Pathologists ruled that blood found on the face, limbs and back of hotel worker Julie Pearson suggest she was attacked shortly before she died.
Now relatives fighting for “justice for Julie” have mounted a legal bid to raise their case in Israel’s courts and establish whether the apparent beating was a factor in her death.
Her family allege she was assaulted by a former boyfriend the day before she was found to have suffered a major internal haemorrhage.
The post-mortem, carried out by a forensic institute in Tel Aviv, blamed a rare condition idiopathic spontaneous intraperitoneal haemorrhage for her death. However, it does not rule out the possibility that the beating she received played a role in her death.
It also noted that she had a high percentage of alcohol in her blood when she died.
Miss Pearson died on November 27, last year, after visiting Eilat’s Dolphin guest house. She had moved to the town in September 2014 and has family connections there.
It has taken Miss Pearson’s family in Scotland eight months to receive the official post-mortem findings.
The document was released to them last week in Hebrew and was translated by their Israeli lawyer.
Aunt Deborah Pearson, from Blackburn in West Lothian, has called for the case to be investigated and the former boyfriend to be investigated.
“I’ve spoken to the doctor at the Forensic Institute in Israel and he told me there is a possibility that the beatings contributed to her death.”
She said she is looking to raise £20,000 to start a legal proceedings. “I’m going to take it to a civil court in Israel to see if there’s a possibility the beatings contributed to her death.
“It says the haemorrhage could be the result of an injury that didn’t have to be a powerful one. So if a person is weak, it could just take one blow to kill them.”
She said she was convinced the former partner was to blame. “You don’t just haemorrhage for no reason,” she said.
MP for Livingston Hannah Bardell said: “It always makes me sad when we have cases such as these, when someone has been killed or died in unknown circumstances and we have to get so heavily involved.
“It should be the case that the systems and processes are in place to support a family, but unfortunately it doesn’t appear in this case that they have been so we have to keep fighting to get justice for Julie.”
