Family blasts wife murderer Fraser

The family of a woman whose controlling husband arranged her cold-blooded murder said they never expect him to reveal her fate, as he was jailed for life for a second time.

Nat Fraser must spend at least 17 years behind bars for organising the "shocking and wicked" killing of Arlene Fraser, whose body has never been found.

The mother-of-two was 33 when she vanished from her home in New Elgin, Moray, on April 28 1998.

The sentence, which followed a retrial lasting more than five weeks at the High Court in Edinburgh, marks the end of a long chapter in Fraser's 14-year bid to evade justice.

Arlene's parents, Hector McInnes and Isabelle Thompson, and her sister Carol Gillies had to come face-to-face with the man responsible for her death during both murder trials and numerous appeal hearings. Mrs Gillies, 49, said it was time to move on and "lock the cell door" on Fraser.

"Every time I hear those words on radio or television, 'remains have been found', I stop and think it's maybe going to be Arlene," she said later.

"But it's never going to be, I have to accept that Nat Fraser is never going to tell us the truth."

Described as "possessive and controlling", Fraser instigated the murder of his estranged wife - and the disposal of her body - after she began divorce proceedings.

The trial heard a claim Fraser told former friend Hector Dick he paid a hitman £15,000 to kill her and said the body had been burned and her teeth ground up.

Mrs Fraser disappeared after seeing her children - Jamie, then 10, and five-year-old Natalie - off to school. She was due to see her solicitor that day about a divorce, prompted by an assault the previous month in which Fraser had gripped her by the neck.