THE Port Glasgow pensioner who was charged with concealing a dead woman’s remains under a garden could face a retrial.

Martial arts man Joseph Doherty, who’s known locally as ‘Karate Joe’, was on trial in England accused of keeping the murder of his sister-in-law secret for 12 years.

The 73-year-old from Old Greenock Road, who did not give evidence during the case, denied perverting the course of justice, obstructing the coroner by giving a false account of Natalia Wilkanowska’s death and one charge of preventing her lawful burial.

Those proceedings came to an abrupt end yesterday when the jury in the case at Luton Crown Court said they could not agree on the series of charges relating to an alleged cover-up over the death of Ms Wilkanowska.

The 50-year-old deceased had gone missing in 2003 and her body was found just over a year ago under builder’s rubble at a house in the Bedfordshire town. 

Judge Michael Kay QC discharged the jury – who’d been considering their verdicts since Friday – yesterday afternoon. Last week, the judge had directed the jury to clear Joseph’s brother, 67-year-old Daniel Doherty, below, who owned the house where the remains were found, of all five charges against him.

The judge said that, having heard the prosecution case, he concluded that there was no case to answer against him.

Ms Wilkanowska, who was 50, disappeared in 2003 after visiting her ex-husband Gerald Doherty – Joseph and Daniel’s brother – in Luton.
Her body was discovered in December 2015.

She had suffered trauma to the skull, according to a pathologist.

Prosecutor Neil King had told the trial that Gerald Doherty, who hanged himself in a flat in Port Glasgow’s Robert Street in July 2003, was responsible for the death of his ex-wife.

He alleged that years later Joseph Doherty had told family members that Gerald had confessed to him that he had killed Natalia and chopped her up in circumstances that she would never be found. 

Mr King said yesterday that the prosecution was likely to seek a retrial. The case will return to court on Friday February 3.