Edinburgh World's End Murders: How Angus Sinclair avoided justice after Christine Eadie and Helen Scott killings

It has been more than four decades since Edinburgh was rocked by the news that two young school friends, who had been out celebrating new jobs and new chapters in their lives, had been murdered.

Christine Eadie and Helen Scott were just 17 years old when they walked through the doors of the World’s End pub on the Royal Mile on the evening of October 15, 1977. It was the last stop on a pub crawl they had been on with their friends, and the pair had intended to make their way home after one last drink.

But the following day, police had to deliver the news to devastated families that both girls’ bodies had been discovered dumped miles apart. They had been beaten, sexually assaulted and strangled with their own clothing.

It has been more than four decades since Christine Eadie and Helen Scott were murdered

The investigation into the murders was one which would span decades, with serial killer Angus Sinclair only having been convicted of the killings in 2014. His brother-in-law Gordon Hamilton, whose DNA was also found on Helen’s clothing, had died in 1996 and never faced questions about his involvement in the senseless killings.

The first episode of our new crime series takes a look at one of Edinburgh’s most famous cases and how advances in DNA profiling and a change in the law helped to ensure that Sinclair spent the rest of his life behind bars. It was a crime which shook Edinburgh, not just in the days, weeks and months following the girls’ deaths, but for the almost 40 years it took for Christine’s and Helen’s family to see the person responsible be brought to justice.