In a two-part documentary, Murder Trial: The Disappearance of Margaret Fleming, filmmakers were granted unprecedented access to the investigation and subsequent trial of co-accused Edward Cairney and Avril Jones.

Filmed by BAFTA Scotland award-winning director Matt Pinder and featuring prosecutor Iain Mcsporran QC, and defence counsel Ian Duguid QC and Thomas Ross QC, this ground-breaking documentary takes the audience into the very centre of the trial at the High Court in Glasgow and beyond as carers Cairney and Jones face trial for the murder of 35-year-old Margaret.

Offering a compelling insight into the work of the police and prosecutors in bringing the two suspects to trial, the documentary also shines a light on the work of the defence teams representing the two accused of Margaret’s murder.

In 2016, an application for a personal independence payment raised suspicions. When authorities couldn’t contact the applicant, the police were called and it was discovered that a 35-year-old woman had seemingly vanished from a village on the west coast of Scotland.

Margaret was a vulnerable adult understood by authorities to be in the full-time care of Cairney and Jones, living in a remote coastal property in the village of Inverkip. But when police started questioning Margaret’s friends and family, they were told no one had seen her since 1999.

In the 2019 murder trial that unfolds, Cairney and Jones stand accused of killing her, disposing of her body and claiming benefits in her name for 16 years.

Filmed both inside and outside of the courtroom, this case takes viewers deep into the inner workings of Scotland’s justice system, as a small community coming to terms with the prospect of a potentially brutal and calculated crime occurring unnoticed in its midst.

Part one of Murder Trial: The Disappearance of Margaret Fleming will be broadcast tonight on BBC Scotland at 10pm.