A MOTHER jailed for life for leaving her toddler son to die in her squalid flat was waiting to hear whether appeal judges will clear her of murder.
Kimberley Hainey, 38, was sentenced to at least 15 years for murdering her son Declan and hiding his body.
She has always claimed she found him dead in his cot in her home Paisley, and that she played no part in his death.
Declan's body was found in March 2010, eight months after he was last seen alive. Experts were unable to establish a cause of death.
However, forensic anthropologist Professor Sue Black, of Dundee University, told jurors at Hainey's trial that marks on his bones were caused by malnutrition.
At the Court of Appeal in Edinburgh, defence QC Edward Targowski said the so-called Harris lines could be explained in other ways that did not rule out death from natural causes.
Lord Clarke, sitting with Lords Mackay of Drumadoon and Drummond Young, said a written decision would be given at a later date.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article