Jury retires to consider verdict in ex-Fettes College teacher murder trial

Paul Black, 65, denies killing former biology teacher Peter Coshan in August 2022.

Paul Black denies killing a former Fettes College teacher in August 2022 (Jane Barlow/PA). (PA Archive)

A jury at Edinburgh High Court has retired to consider its verdict in the trial of a man accused of murdering a retired Fettes College teacher.

Paul Black, 65, denies murdering 75-year-old Peter Coshan on either August 11 or 12 2022 as part of a catfishing plot with his flatmate, Paul McNaughton, to steal thousands of pounds.

He is accused of working with his flatmate to lure the former teacher to his Leith address using a fake profile on the hook-up site Gaydar, and the court heard evidence that Black put a bag over Mr Coshan’s head to suffocate him.

Black denies murder, and earlier told Edinburgh High Court that McNaughton lured Mr Coshan to the flat without his knowledge, and that McNaughton murdered the former biology teacher while he was watching television in another room.

McNaughton, 29, pleaded guilty last year to murdering Mr Coshan and perverting the course of justice.

In his evidence to the trial, McNaughton blamed Black for suffocating Mr Coshan, claiming his own role was luring Mr Coshan, a former lover, to the flat on Seafield Road in Leith.

During the trial, Black admitted perverting the course of justice by driving Mr Coshan’s body to Northumberland to dispose of it, and by lying to police who visited his flat as part of their investigation, and Judge Lord Scott instructed the jury to find him guilty of this charge.

Judge Lord Scott told the jury that “concert or joint criminal responsibility” was key to the case against Black, and said they had to decide whether the two men were jointly responsible for the murder.

He said: “If you are satisfied that the accused and Paul McNaughton were acting together with the joint purpose of committing this crime, that their purpose involved killing Peter Coshan or carried a foreseeable risk that he would be killed, and in carrying it out either the accused or Paul McNaughton killed Peter Coshan, then the accused would be guilty of murder if he actively associated himself with that purpose by word or action.”

He told the jury they may have strong feelings about what they may see as a “morally repugnant” case, but instructed them to exercise “Cool clinical and unprejudiced judgement, and to try this case dispassionately”.

Lord Scott sent the jury out on Friday morning to consider its verdict.