Calendar An icon of a desk calendar. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Email An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Google An icon of the Google "G" mark. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Logout An icon representing logout. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Tick An icon of a tick mark. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Quote Mark A opening quote mark. Quote Mark A closing quote mark. Arrow An icon of an arrow. Folder An icon of a paper folder. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Caret An icon of a caret arrow. Clock An icon of a clock face. Close An icon of the an X shape. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Ellipsis An icon of 3 horizontal dots. Envelope An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Home An icon of a house. Instagram An icon of the Instagram logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Menu An icon of 3 horizontal lines. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Rating An icon of a star. Tag An icon of a tag. Twitter An icon of the Twitter logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Information An icon of an information logo. Plus A mathematical 'plus' symbol. Duration An icon indicating Time. Success Tick An icon of a green tick. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Facebook Messenger An icon of the facebook messenger app logo. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Facebook Messenger An icon of the Twitter app logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. WhatsApp Messenger An icon of the Whatsapp messenger app logo. Email An icon of an mail envelope. Copy link A decentered black square over a white square.

World’s End serial killer Angus Sinclair dies in prison

Angus Sinclair.
Angus Sinclair.

Serial killer and rapist Angus Sinclair, who was convicted of the notorious World’s End murders in Scotland, has died in prison aged 73.

The Scottish Prison Service confirmed he died overnight at HMP Glenochil in Alloa, Clackmannanshire.

Sinclair spent more than half his life behind bars for killing four girls as well as for a string of sex attacks on young children.

But detectives suspect he could have been behind several unsolved murders from the 1970s.

A statement from the prison service said: “Angus Robertson Sinclair, 73, a prisoner at HMP Glenochil has died.

Police probe claim World’s End killer raped Dundee teenager

“He was convicted at Edinburgh High Court on 31 August 1982. Police Scotland have been advised and the matter reported to the Procurator Fiscal.

“A Fatal Accident Inquiry will be held in due course.”

His conviction in 2014 for raping and murdering two teenage girls in Edinburgh in 1977 resulted in him receiving the longest minimum sentence ever imposed by a Scottish court.

Sinclair was ordered to spend a minimum of 37 years in jail for the crimes – the same number of years the families of victims Christine Eadie and Helen Scott waited for justice.

But he was already in jail – having been locked up since 1982 for sexually assaulting girls between the ages of six and 14.

While still in prison for the sex attacks, Sinclair was given a life sentence in 2001 for the murder of Glasgow teenager Mary Gallacher in 1978.

However, he had earlier served six years behind bars for killing a seven-year-old girl in 1961.

Aged 16, he pleaded guilty to culpable homicide – admitting strangling Catherine Reehill in Glasgow and dumping her body on a tenement stairway.

It meant he spent around 40 years of his life locked up.

It was following the Mary Gallacher case that police began to examine the link between Sinclair and several other unsolved murders.

The 17-year-old was raped and stabbed near a railway line as she went to meet a friend. Sinclair was linked to the crime years later following a DNA breakthrough.

Scientific advances later led detectives to Sinclair for the unsolved World’s End murders of 1977.

Christine Eadie and Helen Scott, both 17, were brutally killed after a night out at Edinburgh’s World’s End pub on October 15 1977, with their bodies discovered the following day in East Lothian.

They had been bound and strangled with their own underwear.

Sinclair was convicted of raping and murdering both girls with his brother-in-law Gordon Hamilton, who died in 1996, after a five week-trial in November 2014.

The prosecution was the first under changes to Scotland’s double jeopardy law which meant he could be retried for their murders after a court case against him collapsed seven years earlier.

The sentencing judge described Sinclair as a dangerous predator capable of sinking to the depths of depravity and said the words “evil” and “monster” were inadequate for him.

The case, which became known as the World’s End murders, was for decades one of Scotland’s highest-profile unsolved crimes.

The then Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland, prosecutor in the trial, said the thousands of police officers who worked on the case through the years “never ceased in their endeavours to bring the girls’ murderers to justice”.

Sinclair had launched a bid to have the term for the World’s End crimes reduced but that was rejected by appeal court judges.

In a written judgment delivered in March 2016, they said of the 1977 murders: “Those appalling crimes demonstrated an immeasurable capacity for evil, depravity, and sadism.

“The suffering of the victims and their bereaved families is, in our view, incalculable.”