Sean Flynn walked from court a free man after being cleared of the death of his mum Louise Tiffney, 43, but as his retrial was about to begin this week, the 37-year-old was found dead in Spain after an apparent suicide meaning her family may never see justice.
Journalist Gordon Currie was only reporter to speak to Flynn after he was cleared of murder. Here he writes about the case from 2005.
The hatch from the basement cells opened and Sean Flynn re-entered Courtroom One minutes after the jury had dramatically cleared him of murdering his mother.
I gave him a moment to embrace his father before asking if I could have a word about the outcome of his high-profile trial.
“Did you kill your mother?”
“No,” he replied. It was the answer I expected, but I was taken aback by the lack of emotion in his voice.
There was no anger at my question, as if he had started to believe it himself.
Outside, on the court steps, a police spokesman said the force were not looking for anyone else in connection with Louise Tiffney’s disappearance and assumed murder.
They knew they had the right man, but didn’t know why the jury had cleared him.
The police investigation had been epic in scale and the evidence presented in court was thorough.
The Crown would not have taken the unusual step of prosecuting a murder with no body unless they were convinced the case was watertight.
They produced clear traces of Louise’s blood in Flynn’s car and CCTV footage of the vehicle heading out of Edinburgh to what would eventually be the dumping ground for his mother’s body.
The defence argued there were nearly 50 identical cars in the UK and it could have been any one of them.
But the police had spoken to the owners of all of them and only Flynn could not prove he was elsewhere.
The Crown then introduced mobile phone evidence and it was at this point that some members of the jury seemed to be having trouble keeping up.
Triangulation points locking Flynn and his phone in certain places were explained at length by witnesses.
The younger jurors looked engaged in the damning evidence –which contradicted Flynn’s claims about his movements – but some of the older jurors appeared confused.
Sitting behind me was his father – an honest man struggling to reconcile loyal support for his son and the mountain of evidence showing he was a cool liar, capable of matricide.
In the end, enough doubt was sown for a split jury to clear Flynn.
Afterwards, in his father’s home, Flynn answered my questions in his only interview in the wake of the trial and remained composed and consistent throughout.
He was quietly spoken and polite, but withdrawn. He continued to insist he had nothing to do with his mother’s murder.
But if he was innocent, where was the rage about what had happened to her?
He admitted they had frequently argued and said she was a volatile character who was sometimes difficult to get along with. He admitted she had thrown him out of the house on occasion.
He admitted that Louise’s blood was found in his car but stuck by his version – that she had somehow bled on dustsheets which had ended up in his boot.
He almost certainly believed he had got away with her murder until her body was discovered.
It is almost 20 years since Louise died in Dean Path, Edinburgh.
The decision to bring Flynn back for a re-trial after the body was discovered in 2017 apparently escalated his torment beyond the point where he was able to cope with the memory of whatever he did in his mother’s flat on May 27, 2002.
Unable and unwilling to face his truth, it eventually consumed him to the point where he fled to Spain and took his own life.
The irony was that if Flynn had admitted his involvement in 2002, he’d almost certainly have served his time and be a free man now.
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