How Did They Do That?

After the incident, Car Genie left the Kingsway dual carriageway, either at the Coupar Angus Road junction or the MacAlpine Road junction. Miro may well have followed him on his motorbike and the pair could have stopped for a team and tactics talk. Car Genie then went to Balgowan Avenue Police Office, on the north side of the dual carriageway, to make his complaint. He would then have had to make his way home to Muirhead to await the arrival of the investigating officer.

Constable Kenneth Bell, of Forfar Police, had been instructed to proceed to Car Genie's address shortly after 6pm and arrived at 7pm. Quite why a copper from a distant office was asked to drive 15 miles to attend a minor complaint is an administrative mystery. Bell examined Car Genie's Astra, finding a slight scuff mark on the front offside tyre. Carnegie gave him the registration number of a motorbike and Bell later contacted Miro and got a statement from him - his own statement does not say how he obtained it.

Constable Bell is of interest because, being based at a provincial police office, he would have known PC Philip Gill, a colleague who is the force's Police Training Officer. Gill happens to be the stepfather of Car Genie's 12 year-old daughter Ailsa and it is quite possible that Bell knew, or knew of, the man he was visiting in Muirhead that evening. The full significance of this piece of knowledge is unclear, although it would have at least have offered Car Genie scope for obtaining inside information on police and court procedures.

There was no mention of the broken-down van in either of the two statements given to PC Bell and I was unable to discover when the Procurator Fiscal's office learned about it. It seems to have been added to the evidence as an afterthought and the source of the information has been the subject of much speculation. I thought it might have come from Car Genie's police contacts. Then I wondered if he had learned about it while monitoring police radio traffic. However, I considered it more likely to have come from Rob Roy - she probably left work in Perth some time after her boyfriend and, as she approached Swallow Roundabout shortly after 6pm, would have noted the van stranded by the side of the road, perhaps with a police patrol car in attendance. It is odd that she made no mention of the van in her Precognition Statement given in late January or early February 2006, so perhaps the three conspirators only realised its potential value closer to the Trial date, when they decided to "remember" it.

Exactly how Car Genie and Miro know one another is another conundrum that has not yet been resolved. Car Genie was born in 1955 and lived in an area of social housing in north Dundee. Miro's father, John, was born in the same district in 1953. They would have gone to the same school and probably knew one another. They may have continued their education at the local Technical College - John to train as a systems engineer and Car Genie as an electrician. One of the lecturers there was a radio enthusiast and it was probably his influence that got Car Genie hooked on the ham radio scene. Today he is the keeper of an FM repeater station near Forfar. He currently works as an electrician at Ninewells, an NHS Trust hospital in Dundee. Both Miro and Car Genie have female relatives or friends who, as nurses, are employed at Ninewells. Therein lies the likeliest connection so far found.