A KEY witness may have made up his story about a fellow prisoner confessing to murder after reading about a £10,000 reward in the Dunfermline Press. 

That's according to the defence counsel for Steven Thomson, who is accused of battering Duncan Banks to death in his Abbeyview home in September 2015. 

Derek Ogg QC said the jury at the High Court in Livingston was being asked to convict his client on the basis of mainly circumstantial evidence. 

The case against Thomson, 29, who denies murder, is said to hang on a confession he allegedly made to a fellow prisoner.

The prisoner, Liam McIlduff from Rosyth, gave evidence that the accused had told him he had “cracked” Duncan’s skull with a hammer.

He said: “ I also remember him saying something about it coming from a shed and somebody had been questioned because it was missing and whoever that person was maybe stuck him in.”

Thomson’s ex partner, Claire Rafferty, testified that a rusty claw hammer used by Thomson was missing from her garden shed when it was searched after Duncan’s murder.

Advocate depute Alex Prentice said the jury had “a significant body of compelling and convincing evidence bound together to form a strong case.”

But in Mr Ogg's closing speech he told the jury that McIlduff may have made up the story after reading in the Dunfermline Press that Crimestoppers had issued a £10,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of the murderer.

He said: “But for the appearance of Mr McIlduff this was a circumstantial case. Absent that testimony this is a circumstantial case.”

He suggested that it was not necessarily someone in Duncan’s inner circle of friends – like Thomson – who could have committed the “cowardly” crime.

He said it could have been someone with a true key who had tried to rob the dead man’s flat where it was known Duncan had a stash of heroin and a large amount of cash.

Thomson, 29, is charged with murdering Duncan by repeatedly hitting him on the head with a blunt object or objects to his severe injury and robbing him of money, heroin, a wallet and a key.

Mr Prentice described the trial as “a very sorry tale about the way in which heroin, a pernicious drug, ruins life”.

He said: “It contributed to the violent death of a young man who by all accounts, despite his heroin addiction and his willingness to supply heroin, was a fairly laid-back gentle person.”

Mr Prentice said Thomson had admitted to police he was in Duncan’s home on the day he is thought to have been killed and was aware that Duncan had heroin and up to £800 in cash.

He told the jury: “Duncan Banks was comfortable with whoever was in the flat. There is no sign of forced entry, no disturbance, no sign of a struggle. It was a scene of domesticity.

“The conclusion I ask you to make is he’s been sitting in his chair and he’s been taken unawares with several blows to the side of the head. I suggest that limits the possible candidates for this murder.”

He suggested that Thomson knew that another heroin user – Jamie Curtis, who he blames for the murder – had been at Duncan’s door because he was inside the flat at the time.

Witness Glen Gilmour gave evidence of a “meerkat moment” when Thomson surprised him and others by telling them that he bumped into Jamie Curtis on the way out on the morning before Duncan’s body was found at his home in Skye Road.

He said Thomson, who had smoked heroin and left four roll-ups with his DNA in the ashtray, had clearly been in the flat for at least half an hour that morning. 

Less than two hours later he was “flush with money” with his wallet stuffed with banknotes.

He said text messages Thomson sent to Duncan Banks later that day were “a cynical attempt by him to cover his tracks”.

He also reminded the jury of the evidence of Andrew Gillies, a reluctant witness, who claimed Thomson joked with him that he knew Duncan had heroin, and £500, knew where his stash was and “felt like robbing him”.

Mr Ogg said there were plenty of Crown witnesses, many of whom were heroin users, who hadn’t been able to keep their story straight from one statement to the next.

He told the jury: “If there’s something that would make you pause then you must acquit the accused.

“He is an honest man. He tells the police he was there.  He’s not a suspect when he gives this statement. 

“He tells them his movements. He puts himself in the frame by giving evidence against himself.”

He questioned the police estimate that Duncan was killed between 9.30am and 11.30am on Sunday 27 September 2015 because the dog he was looking after had not soiled the room in which it was shut.

Mr Ogg said: "This is a dog that doesn’t do the toilet for 30 hours… unless someone’s put the dog in that room at a later time."

He also said the linear nature of the injuries to Duncan’s head were unlikely to have been caused by a rounded hammer, and no rust had been found in the wounds.

He said: “The Crown would have you believe that this is a man who murdered his friend in a most brutal fashion, a cowardly fashion, then he is texting his pal he plays football with.

“He goes home, doesn’t launder his clothes, doesn’t go into the shower scrubbing like Lady Macbeth. You saw him walking in Abbeyview, not concealing anything up his arm. 

“If he’s just come into money for which he’s murdered someone to death, he’s so stupid that he’ll have his wallet with money in it so obvious that the guy behind the counter comments on it?”

He reminded the jury that Thomson had not wanted to tell anyone that he had got the money from illegally dealing heroin to fund his own habit.

He put Thomson’s initial reluctance to be quizzed by murder detectives down to the fact that he had warrants outstanding for his arrest and knew he would be kept in custody if he gave himself up.

He said: “He doesn’t want to be in jail for Christmas and he’s not going to get a charge of heroin. He’s preoccupied with the things that do worry him in his life, he’s not worrying about the murder investigation.”

Mr Ogg urged the jury to make their own deductions from the facts which they found proved in the case but warned them not to speculate.

He said: “Cases like this rely largely on circumstantial evidence. It isn’t weak evidence but it can be neutral evidence.

“I’ve invited you to look at it in other ways and look at the pattern of innocence around Steven Thomson.

“My friend is right that if you are in the grip of heroin you can be so ‘rattled’ that you would murder for it. That applies to other heroin addicts in this case.

“Circumstantial cases do lack that silver bullet of forensic evidence or eye witness accounts. It’s a step too far and a step into the unknown to say that my client murdered his friend.”

Judge Lady Rae adjourned the case until Monday morning when she will give her legal directions.