‘£20k van was bought for her’
MISSING Margaret Fleming had ‘airy fairy’ ideas which were indulged by Eddie Cairney to the extent that he bought her a £20,000 van which was once filled with daffodil bulbs, he told the court.

Cairney said he got her the vehicle after she’d formed a friendship with a named man whom he said she met in Winchester, Hampshire.

But he said that when the vehicle was returned to Seacroft it couldn’t be started because ‘it was being run on chip fat, cooking oil’.

Cairney said: “She’d be getting money in an envelope from me. 

“She got fairly substantial sums from me for her airy fairy ideas.”

He told the court that he also taught Margaret to scuba dive so that she could ‘make a tidy living’ from gathering shellfish.

Cairney said: “It proved to be a terrifying experience because she would not follow the rules.”