Man ‘killed former Fettes teacher he met on dating app’

A 65-year-old man has gone on trial accused of killing a former teacher from Fettes College in Edinburgh and dumping his body.

Paul Black, from Edinburgh, is accused of murdering Peter Coshan, 75, in a flat in Leith on August 11 or 12, 2022. He denies the charge and a string of others.

The High Court in Edinburgh was told on Thursday that Black made contact with the retired biology teacher on Gaydar, the dating website, and WhatsApp and lured him to the property, where he subjected him to a “murderous assault”.

He is then alleged to have concealed the body in the Edinburgh area for a number of days before putting it in a stolen suitcase and driving it to a lay-by on the A696 between Otterburn and Belsay in Northumberland.

The court was told that after attempting to dig a grave, he dumped the body next to a wall, disposed of the suitcase and attempted to dispose of clothing and other items belonging to Coshan.

Reading from a joint minute of agreement, John Keenan KC, advocate depute, told the court that Coshan, who had Parkinson’s disease, called a taxi to take him to the flat at about 11.30pm on August 11 and that he arrived there shortly before midnight.

He said two of Coshan’s friends, who had also worked at Fettes College, alerted the police after growing concerned about his wellbeing when he stopped replying to their messages. Their suspicions grew, Keenan said, when they received a reply from Coshan at about 6am on August 13, which read: “Sorry phone been playing up getting fixed Tom.”

Keenan described the message as “out of character” for Coshan, who texted with correct grammar and did not use abbreviations such as “Tom” to mean “tomorrow”. It led his friends, Keenan said, to suspect “the WhatsApp message had not been written by Peter”.

The court was told that in the days after the killing, Black made numerous cash withdrawals from Coshan’s bank account and used his bank cards to make a number of purchases. Keenan said these included buying a £860 Tag Heuer watch and £4,300 worth of euros from Ramsdens pawnbrokers in Leith on the morning of August 12.

The court was also told that on August 13, Black used Coshan’s cards to take out two car insurance policies, one for the Vauxhall Vectra he is alleged to have used to transport Coshan’s body to Northumberland.

Ross Cook, who attended Fettes College in the 1970s while Coshan was teaching there and saw him “quite regularly” in the years before he died, told the court that the 75-year-old had been targeted by thieves in the months before he was killed.

He said that at one meeting in 2022 Coshan told him that he had been having IT problems.
Cook said: “He had allowed a friend or associate to try and sort out the problem for him, and that person had moved some money he had inherited since his mother’s death to an accessible account.”

The former police officer said about £8,000 had been moved, and he thought that the action had been taken in preparation for stealing the money. Ross added: “He didn’t tell me the name or anything but I’m pretty sure he had met that person on the dating site Silver Daddies.”

He said he had advised his former teacher to break off contact with the individual concerned, but that in June 2022 Coshan, who lived alone, told him he had met him again, which, Ross said, was “very foolish” as the man had attempted to steal from him previously.

Black has denied stealing a total of £50,000 from Coshan between September 2021 and June 2022.
The court also heard evidence from two of Coshan’s former colleagues at Fettes College, who said he had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease for about five years prior to his death.

Elizabeth Thomson, who had worked in the English and drama department at the college, described Coshan as “frail”. She added: “His mobility had been affected a good deal. He found it difficult to move at any speed in a secure fashion and it was obvious when you were speaking to him that his face had become immobile, which is one of the symptoms of Parkinson’s.

“His ability to communicate had been considerably reduced, he spoke very very softly because he couldn’t get any power behind his voice any more.”

She said she had last seen Coshan alive on at 10.15pm on August 11, 2022 when she dropped him off at his flat after a trip to the cinema.

Black has pleaded not guilty to 18 charges. The trial continues.