Missing woman's mother 'hysterical'

Jan 29 2013

The mother of a missing financial adviser alleged to have been murdered said she was "hysterical" the last time she spoke to her daughter.

Patricia Spence, 56, told a court that Lynda Spence phoned her mobile a week after she disappeared and asked to speak to her father.

She said her 27-year-old daughter sounded okay during the conversation on April 20 2011, but she will "never get over" not knowing something was wrong.

Mrs Spence said she was concerned about the lack of verbal contact between them, as Ms Spence was apparently only communicating via text message since the last time she saw her on April 13.

"We had been at Morrisons in Partick (Glasgow). We were at the traffic lights and my phone went," she said. "I answered and I was screaming 'Where are you?'. I was just hysterical.

"She sounded okay. How did she not tell me she needed help? I'll never get over this. She didn't sound as if... you know. If she needed help, you would say 'Help me'. She said 'Get my dad'. She wouldn't speak to me because I was screaming."

Her daughter told them she would phone again later that evening but the call never came.

Ms Spence has not been seen since April 2011 and prosecutors allege Colin Coats, 42, David Parker, 38, Philip Wade, 42, and Paul Smith, 47, abducted, tortured and murdered her. All four deny the charges against them.

At their trial at the High Court in Glasgow, Mrs Spence also told jurors that Coats made her and her husband hand over their caravan in Burntisland, Fife, because he believed Ms Spence owed him money.

Coats, Parker, Wade and Smith are accused of taking Ms Spence from a street in Glasgow on April 14 2011. They are said to have held her hostage at a flat in West Kilbride, Ayrshire, where it is alleged they bound, gagged and assaulted her in an apparent attempt to extract financial information from her.