In the Scottish Courts
| Published date | 01 January 1946 |
| Date | 01 January 1946 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/002201834601000107 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
In the Scottish Courts
INTERROGATION
BY
THE
POLICE
H.M.
Advocate v. Robert Rigg
ROBERT
Rigg, a
lad
of eighteen years
at
the
date
of
his trial, was charged with murder before
the
Lord
Justice-Clerk
and
a
jury
in
the
High Court of Justiciary
sitting in Edinburgh. The indictment bore
that,
on 11th
July
1945, in a public shelter in St.
John's
Hill, Edinburgh,
Rigg assaulted Phyllis Merritt, eight years of age, (his
niece),
that,
inter alia, he seized
her
by
the
neck, compressed
her
throat,
struck
her
head against
the
wall of
the
shelter
and
against a bench, dragged
her
to
the
ground,
struck
her
head
against astone
and
struck
her
on
the
head
and
shoulders with stones
and
that
he murdered her.
At
the
trial, evidence tendered for
the
Crown estab-
lished clearly
the
sequence of events surrounding
the
disappearance of Phyllis Merritt
about
I p.m. on
II
th
July,
the
intensive search of
the
neighbourhood
next
day,
the
discovery of
her
body
by
the
accused, his immediate report
of his discovery to
the
Police,
the
enquiries made
by
invest-
igating officers
and
their
interviews with
the
accused.
The
main facts, indeed, were
not
in dispute.
When
Phyllis failed to meet
her
grandmother, as instructed,
at
I p.m. on
the
II
th, no immediate concern was felt for
her
safety. The grandmother, with whom she
had
been staying
for some days, assumed
that
she
had
gone
to
her
own home
in
another
part
of
the
city
and
would spend
the
night there.
Only
next
day
did
the
relatives realise
the
Phyllis was
missing. Enquiries were made
at
likely places,
the
neigh-
bourhood was combed
and
the
search was extended
to
cover air-raid shelters in a nearby
park-but
not
the
shelter in St.
John's
Hill, within sight of
the
grandmother's
window. Eventually,
about
3p.m.,
Robert
Rigg,
the
accused, on
the
grandmother's
suggestion,
left
her
house
IH
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