Carer who murdered vulnerable teenager and claimed her benefits dies in jail

A woman who murdered a vulnerable teenager in her care and covered up the killing for years while fraudulently claiming her benefits has died in prison.

Avril Jones, 66, and her partner Edward Cairney - who died aged 82 in 2023 - murdered Margaret Fleming around the turn of the century.

Margaret, 19, was not formally reported as missing until 2016 and her body has never been found.

Between her disappearance and the alarm being raised, Jones claimed £182,000 in benefits. She and Cairney were convicted of the murder in 2019.

The Scottish Prison Service (SPS) has now confirmed Jones died in HMP Stirling on Sunday.

Margaret went to live in Inverkip with the couple - who had been friends of her father - after he died in 1995.

The last confirmed sighting of the teenager was in December 1999 and she is believed to have been killed around that time.

Her disappearance was so mysterious that at one point Police Scotland asked Cairney and Jones if she even existed.

The couple concocted numerous stories including that Margaret ran off with a traveller, that she then went on to become a gangmaster who travelled around Europe, and that she was a drug dealer with several aliases.

But in 2019 a jury found the pair guilty of murdering Margaret within three weeks of her final sighting, on 17 December 1999.

Her body has never been found despite the police and Margaret's family pleading to the killers to reveal the location of her remains.

A fatal accident inquiry into Jones's death is likely to be held, as is standard practice after deaths in custody.

Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay, who interviewed the killers when he was a journalist, said: "Margaret Fleming was a vulnerable and innocent young woman who fell into the hands of two monsters.

"With both of her killers now dead, the only tears that should be shed today are in Margaret's memory.

"The refusal of Cairney and Jones to ever reveal the location of her remains confirms that they didn't possess an ounce of decency or compassion."