A woman who was found guilty of murdering her newborn son could have been wrongly convicted, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission has found.
The woman, known only as AZ, was convicted in 2011 after a trial and was handed a life prison sentence with a minimum term of 15 years.
But on Friday, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) said it has referred her sentence to the High Court of Justiciary and said she could have been a victim of a miscarriage of justice.
AZ applied to the commission in 2020, seeking a review of her conviction after psychological work undertaken by the Scottish Prison Service concluded it was likely her decision-making at the time of the offence would have been affected by conditions not diagnosed before the trial.
She said to the commission it might amount to fresh evidence, and that she ought to have been convicted of culpable homicide instead of murder.
The commission began its own review of the case last year and after a forensic psychiatrist backed the diagnosis of the prison service psychologist, it said the new psychiatric and psychological evidence is significant.
The commission, which operates with a board of eight members, said it believes a miscarriage of justice may have occurred and has written to the High Court, the Lord Advocate and the Crown Office outlining why.
The SCCRC is an independent body set up in 1999 to review alleged miscarriages of justice in Scottish convictions and sentences.
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