It will be 18 years on 4th December 2023 since Annie Borjesson’s body was found on the beach at Prestwick in Ayrshire.

The 30 year old Swedish national was found below the esplanade wall about 50cm from the parapet, clothed, face down, still wearing her shoes, by a man walking his dog. Her travel bag and goose down jacket were also on the beach within 20 metres of her body.

The time recorded was 8:23am

Described as a’ tragic accident’, or worse, ‘a suicide’ by Strathclyde police, this narrative of Annie’s death still persists in 2023.

The Ayrshire Post reported on Annie’s death on 7th December 2005.

“a police investigation team quickly sealed off the area but there are no suspicious
circumstances surrounding her death”.

Strange that a local newspaper would report on an unexplained death in advance of the post mortem results.

Having left her flat in Edinburgh, rent paid in advance for her return, she made her journey from Waverley station in Edinburgh, across to Glasgow Central and then took the train to Prestwick with her final destination being Prestwick International Airport.

Her routine was to purchase a stand-by ticket home to Sweden, the cheapest method of air travel, to join her parents and family for Christmas.
As we now know, she did not make that journey, being found dead on the beach below the Esplanade in Prestwick the following morning.

What was she doing there?

No sightings of Annie in Prestwick were recorded, no verifiable CCTV, no reliable witness statements. Nothing.
So, from 4:30 pm on Saturday afternoon, as it was getting dark, until 8:30 am the following morning when Annie’s body was found on the beach, there is a gap of sixteen hours where, to use a modern phrase, Annie was ‘off grid’.

Where was she? Where did she go?

One witness that we spoke to, some time back, confirmed that he went voluntarily to the local police station to recount a sighting of someone standing on the shoreline at low tide which he thought unusual. This sighting became part of the police narrative and that the police confirmed that it was Annie. Our witness said that he could not determine if the person was male or female over that distance and at that time of day. There was a dog nearby, the person was wearing a camel coloured coat or anorak, which is somewhat at conflict with Annie’s bottle green, shiny goose down coat.

Nevertheless, this sighting became part of the police narrative and assumed the status of FACT.

The post mortem at Crosshouse hospital confirmed that Annie had died as a result of drowning. Once that had been concluded, her body was repatriated to her family in Sweden.

There is no issue with the fact that Annie had died by drowning, rather it is a question of where she drowned. The affidavit in our possession from the funeral directors in Sweden, confirmed that the bruising to Annie’s body was significant and much more obvious than had been reported in the Scottish autopsy. Their opinion was that Annie’s body did not present itself as a mere drowning victim: Annie had been beaten and the bruising to her face and torso supported this view. It was not a mere drowning, neither ‘a tragic accident’ nor ‘a suicide’.

We now get into the realms of science, yet further.

Annie had no marine diatoms /algae in her system. None.

No diatoms, which should have been there in their millions as a result of late blooming, common in these waters in October. Evidence of marine diatoms would have supported the narrative that Annie did in fact drown in the sea.

That she did walk out into the sea, taking off her coat, throwing her bag to one side and then launching herself into the water hundreds of metres from the shore, only to be found on the beach the following morning, below the high water mark, with her possessions close by.

How likely is this scenario?

It certainly wasn’t the classic M.O. of a suicide, a Sylvia Plath, with pebbles in the pockets of a coat to ensure that the outcome was certain. So, why take off your heavy goose down coat, put your bag to one side, leave your shoes on, only for them and you to be found the following morning?

One of our specialists in the field of oceanography, providing a very detailed report to us in 2022 posited the theory, based on their analysis of the tides and currents in Prestwick Bay, that Annie was ‘drowned where found’.

In other words, Annie was dumped over the sea wall.

Toxicology evidence from the autopsy revealed that Annie had eaten virtually nothing in the sixteen hours between 4:30pm on Saturday to 8:30 am the following day. There were no stomach contents to analyse, the alcohol content in her bloodstream was insignificant and there was no indication that she had been drugged, leastways and according to the science available in 2005.

We have submitted several requests for information under FOI rules to the Procurator Fiscal’s office, have challenged the lack of review of DNA evidence held by the Crown office, profiles of which now exceed six million on the national database, even asked for the release of histology slides to a fit and proper person, in this case a Home Office forensic pathologist to examine the evidence retained on behalf of the Advocate General, all to no avail.

It seems that the murder of Annie Borjesson, rather than the ‘tragic accident’ or ‘suicide’ as determined in 2005 using the Strathclyde police narrative, remains a closed case and the response from the Crown is somewhat apposite, that to re-open the case is not in the public interest.

Her family and friends still do not know when she died: no time of death is recorded on any documents. No body temperature was taken when she was found to provide an estimate, which should have been actioned. The almost cursory reference to Annie’s death is recorded as :-

‘found dead 2005 December 4th 10:10 hours’

Annie’s death remains, for now,
“a stain on Scottish justice”.