A jury was today urged to convict Brenda Page’s ex-husband of her murder as they were told she wrote “a letter of death foretold” a year before her battered body was found.
Prosecutor Alex Prentice described the accused, Dr Christopher ‘Kit’ Harrisson, as a man “consumed with anger and rage” who “couldn’t bear” seeing Brenda with other men following their divorce.
During closing speeches at the High Court in Aberdeen, Mr Prentice also showed jurors 3D images of the injuries suffered by the genetic scientist.
In his closing speech, Harrisson’s defence advocate, Brian McConnachie KC, criticised the Crown’s case, branding it speculative and with a “yawning chasm” in the evidence.
Harrisson, 82, denies murdering Brenda by repeatedly and violently striking her on the head, face and body with a blunt implement at her flat on Allan Street in Aberdeen on July 14 1978.
The advocate depute told the jury whoever inflicted the horrific injuries on the 32-year-old “did not care” if she “lived or died”.
He then read out an excerpt from a letter Brenda wrote to her divorce lawyer Nicol Hosie – evidence, Mr Prentice claimed, showed the genetic scientist had a “deep-rooted fear” that her ex-husband would kill her.
“If I do depart this earth rather suddenly, please make sure I get a good post-mortem and that my sister and her boys get any benefit,” Mr Prentice said, repeating what Brenda Page wrote in May 1977.
Mr Prentice said: “I suggest that it’s her deep-rooted fear that Kit Harrisson would kill her that caused her to send these messages.”
He also repeated the words of Harrisson’s friend Elsa Christie, who previously told the court that he called her the night before Brenda died and told her he was going to kill his ex-wife.
However, Harrisson’s defence advocate Brian McConnachie KC attacked the Crown’s claims, telling the jury: “The Crown has taken 45 years to bring this case to court.
“This is their last hurrah and they are throwing the kitchen sink at it in a last-ditch effort to prove this case.”
Mr McConnachie also described Brenda Page’s former genetics lecturer at Glasgow University, Adrienne Jessop, as a “dangerous witness”.
‘She said he would do it so nobody would know’
Mrs Jessop told the court on February 22 that the last time she had spoken to Brenda, Brenda said she had moved out of the home that she shared with Harrisson.
“She got a court order that Kit couldn’t come near the flat. It was obvious that she was afraid of him,” Mrs Jessop said.
“If he killed her, she said he would do it so nobody would know.”
Mr McConnachie questioned why Ms Jessop didn’t share that detail with the police when giving statements in 1978 and 2015 and only mentioned it in 2020.
“She gave a statement to the police a little over six weeks after Brenda Page’s death,” he said.
“In the statement, she said a lot of things, but never mentioned that – would that not be the first thing you would tell the police?”
The trial, before judge Lord Richardson, continues.
For all the latest court cases in Aberdeen as well as crime and breaking incidents, join our Facebook group.
