Swinney challenged to publish ‘truly damning’ report on mother’s murder

John Swinney has been pressed to release in full a “truly damning” report on the murder of a young mother.

Claire Inglis, 28, was killed by her boyfriend Christopher McGowan in 2021 – with her body having 76 separate sites of injury when it was discovered in her Stirling home.

As her parents Fiona and Ian watched on from the public gallery at Holyrood on Thursday, Conservative leader Russell Findlay raised the case at First Minister’s Questions.

He urged Mr Swinney to release an expert social work report into Ms Inglis’s death, and also called on him to review a “bail blindspot” in the law that he claimed is “putting women and children in danger”.

McGowan, then 28, was jailed for life and ordered to serve a minimum of 23 years behind bars in October 2023 for a murder the judge described as “beyond sadistic”.

Mr Findlay told the chamber that Ms Inglis’s parents “have spent four years fighting and indeed pleading for information”.

He said McGowan was a “serial criminal” who was “a known danger to women and children” – but despite this he was “repeatedly bailed to the home Claire shared with her young son”.

Calling for a fatal accident inquiry to be held into her death, the Conservative leader insisted a “major flaw at the heart of Scotland’s bail system” is that social workers “are not obligated to verify bail addresses”.

He said this “systemic flaw… explains why a violent criminal and known danger to women and children was repeatedly bailed to Claire’s home address”.

He told the First Minister Ms Inglis’s parents wanted to see this changed.

“Fiona and Ian have urged the Government to back this specific change, so that courts must check the veracity of addresses and that they are safe,” Mr Findlay said.

“They say this could prevent another family from suffering such a tragedy.”

He called on Mr Swinney to “commit to urgently ending this bail blindspot”.

He also pressed the First Minister to publish the social work report commissioned into the case.

Mr Findlay said: “The expert report is truly damning. It says that Claire and her son were ‘invisible in the system’ and the repeated granting of bail to Claire’s home was a ‘repeated safeguarding lapse’.”

He added that while the expert had been asked to establish “if system defects caused or contributed to Claire’s murder”, the Inglis family had not been told the answer to this “because the Crown only gave them a brief summary of the report”.

Mr Swinney, who met Mr and Mrs Inglis in November 2024, said there “may be issues about data handling which cause constraints on the release of the full report”.

But he added: “If the report can be released I am very happy for that to be the case.”

He also said he would ask Scotland’s top prosecutor, Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain KC, if there can be further dialogue with Mr and Mrs Inglis on the contents of the report “to make sure they can have a fuller understanding, to help them try to come to terms with the tragic loss they have suffered”.

He stressed it is only the Lord Advocate who can decide if a fatal accident inquiry should be held, with the SNP leader saying: “As First Minister I have to respect the independence of the Lord Advocate.”

He questioned whether an FAI would “shed any more light” on what had happened than existing reports.

But Mr Swinney said he would “raise these issues directly with the Lord Advocate and ask her for her consideration of these matters to ensure Mr and Mrs Inglis can have as much support as possible to come to terms with the loss that they have suffered”.

On the issue of bail, he said the Scottish Government has already made changes, pointing to legislation passed at Holyrood.

Mr Swinney said this makes clear “the court should specifically consider the protection of the victim from a risk of both physical and psychological harm before making the decision on bail”.

The First Minister insisted: “In my view that would provide the type of protection Mr Findlay is looking for, and that is already in statute.”

However he accepted this would be “of absolutely no comfort to Mr and Mrs Inglis in the loss they have suffered”.