Alistair Wilson case: The doorstep murder that remains one of Britain’s longest-running unsolved cases
Imagine being four years old. One minute your dad is reading you a bedtime story. The next he is lying on the doorstep of your family home, drawing his final breaths.
Blood is seeping from bullet wounds to his face and body, pooling in the hallway, while the innocent eyes of a young boy gaze from the nearby staircase, unable to comprehend he was witnessing an event that would change his life forever.
“I still get that image of my dad in nightmares,” Andrew Wilson, now aged 24, says as he relives the childhood horror he experienced, two decades on from the gangland-style attack that killed his father, Alistair.
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‘Doorstep murder’ case explained
Warning: Contains descriptions some readers may find distressing
Andrew is quiet as he shows me a picture of him and his bank manager dad, taken hours before the fatal evening of 28 November 2004.
The beaming smiles of father and son, captured on a grainy film camera, resemble old photos that usually gather dust in well-thumbed family photo albums. The picture was taken during a relaxed walk in the woods, and shows them both wearing blue outdoor jackets, holding hands. Andrew comes up to his dad’s hip and is leaning his head on his arm.
But this is all Andrew has left. It is the last image of his father alive.
The final photo of Andrew and Alistair
The gunman vanished into the night
The contrast between the family fun on a Sunday afternoon with the brutal violence that would follow the same day is eerie.
The murder of Alistair Wilson is one of Britain’s longest-running unsolved cases.
Even the brightest and most seasoned detectives have been baffled by the fact a gunman carried out such a brutal execution in a sleepy Highland town before vanishing into the night, never to be caught.
No motive has ever been established, although in recent years police have zoned in on a planning dispute across the road.
Andrew is now 24, and grew up without a father
The absence of his father is something Andrew has been forced to come to terms with.
“A lot of my friends’ dads were very good. My uncles all tried to have their influence on me but it wasn’t the same. I remember my grandad teaching me how to kick a football properly… that’s something my dad would have taught me”, he says.
Speaking with a Highland lilt in his voice, he ponders the small but significant moments he missed out on like sharing his “first legal pint” with his dad on his 18th birthday.
“I blanked out a lot of my childhood memories,” he says.
Andrew has had to come to terms with growing up without a father
The knock at the door
It all began on Crescent Road, a long side street in Nairn. Victorian three-storey houses sit near a church, while a nearby beach looks out across the Moray Firth. Crime was rare – there hadn’t been a murder in Nairn for almost 20 years.
Alistair was upstairs with his two young boys, getting them ready for bed when there was a knock at the door. His wife, Veronica, answered a stranger who asked for her husband by name.
The house on Crescent Road
Envelope with ‘Paul’ written on it
Nothing about that interaction seemed to raise suspicion or cause alarm, and Alistair left the boys to come downstairs.
The stranger handed him an empty blue envelope with the word “Paul” written on it, and he closed the door. But bewildered, Alistair opened it again to ask questions. He was instantly shot in a gangland-style attack.
Andrew talks about the family’s plans to visit his dad’s grave, to commemorate the anniversary of his murder.
“He would have been 50 this year,” he says. His tone of voice is matter-of-fact, but his gaze wanders off.
“The whole family got together and marked it.”
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A replica of the weapon used in the murder. Pic: Police Scotland
A planning dispute
Speculation has run rife over the years in Nairn as to the motives behind the murder. Could it have been connected to Alistair’s career at the bank? Could a hitman have carried it out? Andrew says the worst part was when his mum was rumoured to be a suspect.
“It was difficult when people would say it was mum,” he says, emotion audible in his voice for the first time. Sounding protective, Andrew edges forward in his seat.
“I got in trouble at school for fighting because someone would say it was my mum,” he says. “I’d already lost a parent, and my other one was being made out to be something I knew they weren’t. That was my biggest struggle.”
Veronica and Alistair on their wedding day
Owner remains a key witness
Andrew is full of praise for how his mother dealt with being the focus of such hurtful gossip, while being both mother and father to her two sons. “She has done an amazing job,” he says.
In more recent years, police thought a possible motive could be linked to a planning objection Alastair had to a large decking area being built at the pub across the road from his house. His opposition was made public three days before he was killed.
Could a planning grievance really trigger such violence?
Police have stressed the then owner of the venue, who now lives in Canada, is a key witness and not a suspect.
Alistair was a young father when he was shot
‘Murkier and murkier’
Relations between Alistair Wilson’s family and Police Scotland were typically strong. There was no reason to question the strategy and the abilities of officers to do their jobs properly. When detectives told them, 18 months ago, that they were going to make an arrest, they were elated – finally it seemed justice might be done. But it wasn’t to be – the police went silent, and after chasing them for an answer, they found out the arrest had been cancelled.
From there it got “murkier and murkier”, Andrew says, with no explanation given. He and his family feel “let down” by the police, he says, and have no confidence they will ever catch the killer.
They are now calling for Police Scotland Chief Constable Jo Farrell, who was appointed in October 2023, to resign and take responsibility for her “callous” approach, after she refused to meet the family on multiple occasions.
Alistair and his sons
‘Committed to answers’
“If her force has let us down for 20 years and she can’t get a hold of it, how are they going to get us somewhere?” Andrew asks. Police Scotland did not address questions from Sky News about the future of the chief constable.
Sky News confronted Jo Farrell as she arrived at a meeting in Glasgow on 1 December.
“I won’t be resigning, she said, when asked if she would quit over “failing to get a grip” on this.
“I am committed to us getting answers and finding the people responsible for the murder.”
She walked away when questioned further about her competence, or lack thereof, as the Wilson family see it.
Police Scotland Chief Constable Jo Farrell
New senior detective in place
The new senior detective reinvestigating the murder from scratch has said she is determined to find the answers to crack the case.
Detective Chief Superintendent Suzanne Chow, who has met the family face to face, admitted she is currently “not in a position” to arrest anyone and conceded the various inquiries over the years have been “protracted”.
DCS Chow defended her boss’ decision to cancel the arrest.
“The chief’s not being callous,” she said.
Andrew and his brother at their father’s grave
‘We are a tick box’
While this row between the family and police continues there are questions about whether Andrew and his family will ever find closure.
“All we can do is wait,” Andrew says. “We are a tick box to police. Ever since the arrest was pulled it is clear we are just a number to them.”
Photos from the Wilson family
Former Commons leader Lucy Powell has been crowned Labour’s new deputy leader in a closely fought race against Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson.
Ms Powell received 87,407 votes to Ms Phillipson’s 73,536 – a majority of 13,871 – in a contest that was widely perceived as a referendum on Sir Keir Starmer’s popularity with the membership.
Ms Powell was seen as the “anti-Starmer” candidate given she was sacked from cabinet just last month, and centred her campaign on being an independent voice for the backbenches.
Politics live: Follow for updates as Labour names new deputy leader
Ms Phillipson was seen as Number 10’s preferred option, and she had pitched herself as the “unity candidate”, warning that voting for her opponent would result in “internal debate and divisions that leads us back to opposition”.
However speaking to Sky News’s political editor Beth Rigby following the result, Ms Powell insisted she would be a “friend” to the prime minister, adding: “I am confident we can work well together.”
She said she was not here to “write an alternative policy platform” but rather “to make sure Labour values and beliefs are right at the heart of the conversation, and that we’re giving a really clear sense of who we’re for”.
Ms Powell’s earlier victory speech made clear where she thought Labour was going wrong, and what she would challenge the government on.
The Manchester Central MP said Labour “won’t win by trying to out-Reform Reform, but by building a broad progressive consensus”.
She said that started with “wrestling back the political megaphone” from Reform leader Nigel Farage, and “setting the agenda more strongly”.
“Let’s be honest, we’ve let Farage and his ilk run away with it. He wants to blame immigration for all the country’s problems. We reject that,” she said.
“Our diagnosis is different, that for too long the country and the economy has worked in the interests of the few, not the many.”
The reference to “for the many not the few” – the slogan during Jeremy Corbyn’s time at the helm, was not lost on his then shadow chancellor John McDonnell.
The veteran left-winger said on X: “The Labour Party members have spoken & the message is clear, they want change. It’s good to see a return to references to the Labour Party serving once more the many not the few & that Labour must not try out Reform, Reform. Our members realise a new start is desperately needed.”
‘Unwanted deputy imposed on PM’
The deputy leadership role is important as it’s the key connection between the Labour members and the upper echelons of the Labour Party.
The race was triggered by the sudden departure of Angela Rayner, after she admitted to underpaying stamp duty.
The scandal sparked a reshuffle in which Ms Powell was one of the only casualties. It makes the new partnership potentially very awkward for Sir Keir, especially as his new deputy will be free to speak out against his policies from the back benches rather than being bound by collective responsibility like Ms Phillipson.
However in a possible olive branch, Sky News understands Ms Powell will be asked to attend political cabinet meetings, even though she will not officially be a member of cabinet.
Tory chairman Kevin Hollinrake said “weak Keir Starmer” has had an unwanted deputy leader “imposed on him by the Labour Party”, adding: “The failure of the Keir Starmer candidate, Bridget Philipson, is another defeat of the prime minister’s authority.”
Turnout for the vote was low – just 16.6%, suggesting a lack of enthusiasm among party members and its affiliates.
Sir Keir congratulated Ms Powell after the results were announced, saying she “has always been a proud defender of Labour values, and that is exactly what we need at this moment”.
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PM: Powell is ‘a proud defender of Labour values’
He echoed some of her language around immigration, as he attacked the Tories for this week suggesting they supported a policy to deport people who have settled in the UK legally, something Reform UK has advocated.
“That is what we’re up against on the right of politics, a politics of division and grievance that wants to take this great country to a very dark place”, Sir Keir said.
PM warns of ‘battle for the soul of our nation’
The prime minister is under pressure as the party plummets in the polls, with many MPs on the left predicting he could be gone by May if the local elections go badly.
Sir Keir acknowledged Labour is having a difficult time after it lost the Caerphilly by-election to Plaid Cymru on Thursday.
He said it was a “bad result” and “a reminder that people need to look out their window and see change and renewal in their community, opportunities for their children, public services rebuilt, the cost of living crisis tackled”.
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Phillipson ‘disappointed to lose’
“We must unite. We must keep our focus on what is, in my view, the defining battle for the soul of our nation. I know that Lucy will do just that,” he said.
Saturday’s result is the culmination of a six week contest, with the pair having had to secure nominations from 80 MPs in the first round and then win the backing of 5% of local parties or Labour affiliated groups before making it to the final vote.
Initially six candidates entered, but it quickly became a two-horse race as only Ms Powell and Ms Phillipson reached the 80 threshold, following claims from the left of a “stitch up”.
Ms Phillipson said she was “disappointed to lose” but Ms Powell “has my full support”.
She added: “What we all need to do now is unite this party, beat Reform and secure that second term Labour government.”
UK
How many prisoners are released by mistake? Here are the stats as search for migrant sex offender continues
The manhunt for a migrant who sexually assaulted a schoolgirl, and was released from prison in error, is ongoing.
Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu was jailed for 12 months earlier this year after he sexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl and a woman in Epping.
He had been staying in the Bell Hotel in Epping and his arrest triggered large-scale protests and disorder.
The Ethiopian national, who came to the UK on a small boat in the summer, is now being searched for by the police after he was accidentally freed on Friday.
Follow the latest updates on the manhunt
Hadush Kebatu, jailed for two sexual assaults in Epping. Pic: Essex Police / PA
How many prisoners are released in error?
According to government statistics published in July, 262 prisoners were released in error in the 12 months to March 2025 – a 128% increase from 115 the previous year.
The report states: “Of the 262 releases in error, 233 of these releases in error occurred from prison establishments, while 29 were released in error at the courts.
“Releases in error from establishments could also be a result of errors by the court.”
This is out of a total prison population across England and Wales of roughly 86,000.
Sky News has contacted the HM Prison & Probation Service to know how many of the 262 prisoners have since been found and returned to custody.
In September 2024, Sky News reported how dozens of people released from jail under the government’s emergency prison scheme were freed by mistake.
The Labour government said it was forced to release hundreds of inmates early because prisons were at capacity.
William Fernandez. Pic: PA
Kebatu, who is thought to be in the London area, was due to be deported when he was mistakenly released from HMP Chelmsford on Friday.
Previous high-profile manhunts
William Fernandez, who was awaiting trial for sexual assault, was released from HMP Wormwood by error in March 2021. He then went on to rape a 16-year-old girl and sexually assault a young woman.
Joseph McCann. Pic: Police handout
In December 2019, the prisons and probation service “apologised unreservedly” after serial rapist Joseph McCann was freed to commit a series of sex attacks on women and children.
In July 2017, an inmate who was released from prison just months into a nine-year sentence due to a “clerical error” was arrested after weeks on the run.
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