Amber Gibson: brother Connor jailed for life for sexually assaulting and murdering 16-year-old sister

A man who sexually assaulted and murdered his 16-year-old sister has been jailed for life. Warning: this article contains details that readers may find distressing.

Connor Gibson, 20, was found guilty of fatally attacking his sister Amber Gibson, 16, in a woodland in Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, Scotland. He removed her clothes, sexually assaulted her with the intention of raping her, inflicted blunt force trauma to her head and body, and then strangled her.

At the High Court in Livingston on Monday (4 September), he was handed a life sentence and ordered to spend a minimum of 22 years in prison for his “depraved” crimes.

Amber was first reported missing on 26 November 2021. Her body was discovered two days later, in Cadzow Glen, covered in mud and hidden in bushes and branches.

Gibson was arrested on 1 December 2021 - just a day after he posted a chilling tribute to the sister he had murdered on Facebook: “Amber, you will fly high for the rest of time. We will all miss you. Especially me. I love you ginger midget. GBFN (goodbye for now) x.”

Stephen Corrigan - a man who was unknown to both Amber and Connor Gibson - was also sentenced for crimes against Amber on Monday (4 September), after being found guilty of interfering with her dead body.

Corrigan found Amber’s corpse after Gibson had attacked her, but rather than alerting the police, he inappropriately touched her and concealed her remains. He was jailed for nine years.

During the trial, the court heard how widespread blood staining on Gibson’s clothes had been compatible with Amber. His DNA was also found on her shorts, worn as underwear, which had been “forcibly torn off”.

CCTV caught Gibson hiding his clothes in a bin at the Blue Triangle homeless hostel in Hamilton, where he was staying at the time of the murder. Amber was living at Hillhouse children’s home at the time of her death.

The two siblings had been fostered from the ages of three and five by Craig and Carol Niven. After Gibson was convicted, the married couple said in a statement that Amber was “the most giving, loving, supportive, and admirable person” - and that their lives will “never be the same again”.

They described Amber as having “the most amazing outlook on life considering the suffering she had experienced”, adding: “When they arrived at our home - Amber aged three and Connor aged five - Connor stated: ‘We are safe now’. They were until he took her safety away.”

In a separate case last month, 20-year-old Jamie Starrs was jailed for more than a decade after being found guilty of raping Amber in June 2021 - just five months before she was murdered by her brother and violated by Stephen Corrigan.

Starrs had just been released on bail for another sex attack when he raped Amber, while she was either asleep or unconscious at a property in Bothwell, South Lanarkshire.

Describing his actions as “appalling”, Judge Thomas Welsh sentenced Starr to ten-and-a-half years in prison, after he had also been found guilty of raping another teenager just two weeks earlier.

Speaking after Amber’s tragic death, Mr and Mrs Niven also commented on evidence given in court concerning how the siblings had been “let down” throughout their lives by the care system.

They said: “As a family, we all feel this could have been prevented. We now have a daughter buried in Larkhall Cemetery and a son in prison. We really miss Amber. Life will never be the same.”

An independent review into the care Amber received from authorities before she was murdered will be carried out in a move to determine whether lessons can be learned from the tragedy.