Former boxing champion may have been killed instead of underworld target in Edinburgh hit

The fatal stabbing of Neil McCann prompted one of the biggest police investigations Scotland had seen and more than 50 years later the baffling gangland related murder remains unsolved.

Law-abiding Neil was a former boxer who had moved in with his mum after a marriage split.

The 37-year-old had won a Scottish title as a teenager and had been tipped for a big professional career but now worked as a builder.

Neil had got off in the capital’s Craigmillar district and had intended to stay the night with a girlfriend.

However unbeknownst to Neil, he was being followed by several men in a distinctive Ford Capri. A luxury car in its day and not one normally seen in the housing estate.

Neil had almost reached home when the car pulled up beside him. Two men jumped out and stabbed him several times including blows to the head and body.

The attack in Craigmillar Castle Loan lasted about a minute and Neil, who had tried to use his boxing skills to defend himself, collapsed on the pavement in a pool of blood.

The car sped away, leaving him bleeding heavily from his wounds. Local people heard his agonized screams and came to his aid but by the time he reached the city’s Royal Infirmary he was dead.

To the police, it had all the hallmarks of a gangland hit.

However, the former soldier and dad had no history of criminality and no involvement in organized crime. He had no enemies. In other words, he was not known to the police.

However, the man he had spent the evening with, Charlie McGranaghan, was on the police radar.

Charlie was an old school friend who he met by chance in The International pub in Edinburgh’s Tollcross earlier that day before moving on to the Green Tree in Gorgie Road.

It was the first time they had seen each other in a long time. Customers later told police how they looked similar in appearance, almost like brothers.

In fact, they had often been mistaken for each other when they were at school. It meant the murder had suddenly taken a more sinister turn.

Could Neil have been a victim of mistaken identity, were the killers really after his old pal?

The police had previously suspected Charlie of traveling to London and bringing back consignments of heroin at a time when the drug was beginning to take hold in the city.

The men he was dealing with were said to be linked to an up and coming Turkish Cypriot family, the Arifs, who would go on to become one of the most powerful firms in London.

Like any organized crime group, they did not take kindly to people ripping them off.

Is that what had happened? Had McGranaghan short-changed or cheated the Arifs?

Had they sent a hit team up to take him out but got the wrong man?

Another theory was that the killers were in fact after his younger brother, John McGranaghan, who was due to meet a wealthy local businessman in the International to settle a dispute.

Charlie had taken his place for the meeting but the man never showed up.

It’s thought the mystery businessman had approached Glasgow crime boss Arthur Thompson Sr. to help him find a couple of men who would carry out a hit on John. Arthur, who died in 1993, is then said to have put him in touch with several men who had been asking him for work.

In an interview in 2008, John McGranaghan said he was told the day after Neil’s murder—by someone in the know—that he was the intended victim.

He was also told that four hired killers from Glasgow were paid £12,000 (worth £140,000 today) but got the wrong man.

In a second interview in 2012, McGranaghan also revealed that he had recently been quizzed by police who were reinvestigating the case.

McGranaghan said: "They wanted me to formally name the people concerned. But I’m just not prepared to do that. The names of two men they think committed the murder and the guy who paid for the hit were put to me but I told them I could add nothing."

At the time of the original investigation, Lothian and Borders Police issued a photofit of a suspect.

But the mystery man was never identified and Neil’s mother Flora died five years later, said to be from a broken heart. Local residents came forward with sightings of the smart Capri but little else of value.

At the time, police interviewed around 10,000 people with their inquiries taking them across the UK, with officers even traveling to a North Sea oil rig to interview one witness.

In 1981, Charlie McGranaghan was murdered in a street stabbing in London unrelated to Neil McCann’s murder. Yesterday, Police Scotland said they were still committed to bringing Neil’s killer to justice.

A spokesperson said: "Undetected and unresolved murders are never closed and Police Scotland is fully committed to identifying those people responsible for all such cases.

"We work closely with the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and meet regularly to review outstanding unresolved murders from across the country.

"Working collaboratively, the potential for new investigative opportunities is regularly assessed to maximize the ability to deliver justice for grieving families, irrespective of the passage of time.

"As with any unresolved or undetected homicide, we would review any new information provided to police and investigate further if appropriate."