High Court quashes woman’s convictions after finding she suffered from delusional disorder when tendering plea

About this case:

• Citation:
  [2025] HCJAC 45
• Judgment:
  External link
• Court:
  Appeal Court of the High Court of Justiciary
• Judge:
  Lord Beckett

Shiva Mackison pled guilty to three charges across two summary complaints of sending abusive messages to her ex-partner and breaching bail conditions by attempting to contact him without a reasonable excuse. Her case was referred from the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission on the basis that new information about her mental condition led to the conclusion she was not fit for trial.

The appeal was heard by the Lord Justice Clerk, Lord Beckett, with Lord Matthews and Lord Armstrong. Kennedy, advocate, appeared for the appellant and MacLeod, advocate depute, for the respondent.

Overwhelming evidence

The appellant and her ex-partner Michael Mackison had been married since 2013 and had one child together, aged three at the time of the offences. On 29 June 2021, the appellant sent the complainer a series of abusive messages while he was out with their child, including threatening to set fire to their home and implying she would cause a gas explosion. On 8 October she sent further messages in which she told the complainer she wished him dead.

On both occasions, the complainer reported the appellant to the police, apparently out of concern for her wellbeing. Following her arrest a few days later, she explained that she was unhappy with her husband for taking their child to see his parents. After being released on bail, she approached the complainer and pulled their child away from him, which he allowed to happen to ensure the child was not upset by what was happening. The police later went to her home, found that the child was safe, and arrested her for breaching her special bail conditions.

When the appellant was first arrested, she was examined by a community psychiatric nurse who did not consider that she needed further evaluation. The Crown remained concerned about her vulnerability and sought further information on her mental health, but in a report dated 14 February 2022, a consultant psychiatrist, Dr Bett, concluded that she was fit to participate in her trial and did not have a defence under section 51A of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995.

The SCCRC instructed a report from another consultant psychiatrist, Professor Crichton, who found overwhelming evidence that at the time of the charge the appellant had a major psychotic illness. Counsel for the contended that it was now known that the appellant had been suffering from postpartum psychosis including paranoid and delusional beliefs that her husband intended to harm their child. Following release from prison she had been detained under a compulsory treatment order. Dr Bett did not have all the information available on the appellant’s medical condition because, if she had, she would have interviewed her husband.

Exceptional circumstances

Delivering the opinion of the court, Lord Beckett said of the new evidence available: “The most compelling aspect of this appeal relates to events that occurred after the appellant was convicted. Such developments can be particularly important in allowing psychiatrists, and the court, to reach a sound conclusion on a person’s earlier mental state as this court has previously recognised. In Reid v HM Advocate (2012), the court proceeded to quash a hospital order and instead impose a life sentence for murder. Lady Paton in delivering the opinion of the court noted that ‘a diagnosis of mental illness cannot always be made accurately on a single examination or a number of examinations within a short period of time’.”

He added: “It is now known that, following her release from prison, the appellant was later compulsorily detained for treatment on account of mental disorder, assessed in hospital and treated with anti-psychotic medication to which she responded well. All of this has allowed an experienced forensic psychiatrist to conclude following an exhaustive analysis of a wide range of relevant information, and his own clinical examination and assessment of her in August 2024, that the appellant was, at the time of her committing the offences, suffering from a delusional disorder the effect of which was that she was unable by reason of mental disorder to appreciate the nature or wrongfulness of her conduct.”

Considering what the effect would have been if this information was known earlier, Lord Beckett said: “The appellant would have had a full defence under section 51A. It is likely that the Crown would have accepted it and she would have been acquitted by reason of lack of criminal responsibility and then disposed of under section 57 of the 1995 Act. Accordingly the sheriff could, depending on what psychiatric advice was available, have ultimately imposed a compulsion order that may or may not have included detention in hospital, a supervision and treatment order, or made no order.”

He concluded: “The Crown accept that there are exceptional circumstances demonstrating that the appellant tendered pleas of guilty in circumstances that were clearly prejudicial to her and that a miscarriage of justice has occurred. The Crown point to what can be regarded as evidence for a material part of which there is a reasonable explanation for its absence from proceedings at first instance, namely developments after trial and particularly after the appellant was released from her sentences of imprisonment. In light of the Crown’s concessions, we accept that there has been a miscarriage of justice.”

Having noted that the Crown did not seek authority for a new prosecution, the court therefore quashed the appellant’s convictions on both complaints.