Arlene Fraser murder trial: Witness claims Nat Fraser made "stunning" confession By JOHN ROBERTSON Published on Friday 27 April 2012 14:06 THE estranged husband of missing mother-of-two Arlene Fraser had made a "stunning" confession that she was dead and he had received help in killing her, it has been alleged. A former friend, Hector Dick, 56, told a jury that some weeks after Mrs Fraser had vanished from her home in New Elgin, Moray, he asked Nat Fraser pointedly what had happened to her. He was very self-confident and said she would not be back. He said she was dead ... she was gone. He said the body had been burned and there would be no DNA. The teeth had been ground up and disposed of, and there would be no dental records," Mr Dick claimed at the High Court in Edinburgh. He agreed with the advocate-depute, Alex Prentice, QC, that it had been "stunning information," and he added: "I was shocked." Mr Dick continued: "He had had help ... with regards his wife's disappearance, her murder. He had gotten help from someone down south but he had not trusted him. He suggested he had outwitted the police in relation to hiding the body, and I felt the body must have been near New Elgin. He said he was concerned because the police had been close to where she had been. He said the level of police activity had been far more than he anticipated," added Mr Dick. Fraser, 53, denies acting with others to murder his wife in April 1998, and pleads alibi and incrimination, saying Mr Dick and another or others were responsible if she was killed. Mr Dick alleged that in conversation Fraser had made the "horrific" comment that his wife had been "ground down and scattered," and he had also said he had studied a similar case in France when the body had been disposed of in that way. He continued to withhold the information from the police because he had acquired a car for Fraser which he understood had been used in the murder, and had burned the vehicle and taken the wreckage to a scrapyard after it was returned to him by Fraser. I had made mistakes. I was cornered. I decided I would not own up to nothing. (Fraser) assured me it would be okay, assured me the police were a bunch of fools and would lose interest in the case," said Mr Dick. Throughout his evidence, Mr Dick constantly said he could not remember various things, and he had to be prompted by a statement he made to the police in 2003, when he had been on trial for the murder and had then left the dock to become a prosecution witness. He told the court yesterday: "Nine or ten years ago I was as sharp as a diamond. I had it all up here (in his head). Over the last nine years I have just let it go. I had an opportunity (pre-trial) to look at my statement and I let the opportunity pass. I really thought I would come in here and remember everything but I struggle to remember 50 per cent of what you are talking about. I just have lost it. Referred again to his statement, he agreed that Fraser had mentioned a "hitman" and paying £15,000 to have his wife murdered. She had been killed in her house, and strangulation was gestured by Fraser. He agreed he had stated: " (Fraser) said something had happened while Arlene was being murdered and someone had come about. He suggested a second person had been close to also being murdered. He said, "Thank f*** nane of the kids came in or they would have gotten it too."" Mr Dick recalled becoming uptight with Fraser on one occasion and asking him about the effect on the children of losing their mother. Fraser, he alleged, had laughed and replied: "Oh, they will soon get used to it." Fraser had said that Mrs Fraser's father, Hector McInnes, had been the person in the family on whom her disappearance had taken the greatest toll. I think that was about the end of me and Nat Fraser ... the end of any particular loyalty or any kind feelings I had towards him. It was his comments about Hector McInnes who was a man I liked and a nice man. He burst out laughing and said he was taking it worst of all," said Mr Dick. There had been an occasion when Mr McInnes had passed him in his car. "I really felt like putting out my hand and touching that man and telling him," said Mr Dick. Finally, he had paid for lying and deceiving the police about the car because in 2001 he was jailed for 12 months on a charge of attempting to pervert the course of justice.