Sheriff Alastair Carmichael’s text-to-speech tech a world-first

Sheriff Alastair Carmichael has been using the technology to continue his work as a sheriff following his diagnosis with motor neurone disease (MND).

Although his use of the technology has been covered in the Scottish and UK press, it was brought to wider national attention in yesterday’s episode of Scotland Tonight.

The programme demonstrated how the sheriff uses the technology to preside over trials in Dundee Sheriff Court, with NHS Tayside’s MND team and specialists at SpeakUnique helping him to speak in his own voice.

Sheriff Carmichael told the programme: “I have spent almost my entire adult working life in public service. It’s important to me to carry on doing this for as long as I can.”

He added: “I could not have done this by myself. If anybody watching or listening to this, including someone with a diagnosis or their employer, gets something positive from it, that would give me huge pleasure.”