The mother of a 16-year-old boy accused of raping and killing Alesha MacPhail told the court she was “puzzled” about why he left the house in the middle of the night.

The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said her son was ‘well-liked with a lot of friends’ and was popular and did well in school.

He did parkour and lifted weights, the court was told.

The mother admitted she knew her son smoked cannabis and had done since the age of 14, and said she would see him having a joint behind the garage.

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She told the court: “Obviously I wasn’t happy about it but if he wasn’t doing that he would be going out with other kids getting drunk.

“I wasn’t really that bothered. It wasn’t like he was doing it all the time, he done it occasionally.”

She got CCTV installed because a family member with dementia was moving in, the court heard.

The woman told the court she asked Toni McLachlan to stop selling her son cannabis, and that the 18-year-old laughed and said it was Robert MacPhail who was the dealer.

CCTV captured audio of the mother and son arguing on the night Alesha was abducted, at 12.22am.

He had a party that night, to celebrate the end of exams, the woman said, and the lad had drunk a bottle of wine and Mad Dog 2020.

The mother said she was trying to get him to call his sister, who had left the house with pals.

She said she went to bed, and was awoken the next day to hear shouting outside, as members of the public searched for Alesha.

The mother checked her back garden, then asked her son if he had heard anything.

He told her ‘no’ and went back to sleep, the court heard.

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His mum joined in the search party with her dog, and said she saw Robert MacPhail and Toni McLachlan looking “very upset” as they came down from the woods.

After seeing a police cordon, the woman went into her house.

She told the court: “I went in and told both the children I thought something had happened to the little girl.”

Later she checked her CCTV and saw the accused returning home after 3am - and until that point had not realised he had left the house.

She saw her son leave the house at 1.54am, dressed in dark trousers, black shoes and a black hoodie and return home at 3.35am.

The woman said he was without the “dark fleece he had been originally wearing”.

He then had a shower “making lots of noise”, before leaving the house again wearing shorts and bare feet and carrying a t-shirt.

He returned seven minutes later.

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Watching the original footage again, the mum realised the boy had left walking in the direction of the town centre, and returned from the opposite direction.

She said she initially watched the footage to see if Alesha had passed by the house.

She told the court: “I was wondering why he went out.”

The woman said she asked her son: ‘I see you went out again last night’, and said his feet were dirty.

She recalled him saying: “I don’t know, I must’ve been looking for my phone.”

But when asked by advocate depute Iain McSporran QC if that “puzzled” her, she replied: “Yes.”

She told a friend about it who advised her to call the police.

The mum said: “But I didn’t think he had actually done anything, it was more to help the police and eliminate him from their inquiries.”

The trial continues at the High Court in Glasgow.