Mitchell Skilling

A student who raped a friend after she refused to have sex with him at his flat has lost a High Court appeal against his conviction based on an argument that his representation at trial was defective. Oluwatayo Dada was convicted at Inverness High Court of one charge of sexual assault and another of

The Sheriff Appeal Court has by a 2-1 majority upheld the conviction of a man convicted of distracting a tractor driver with a laser beam after finding that the Crown had proved all the essentials of the statutory offence. Samuel Stewart was convicted of an offence under section 1(1) of the Laser Mi

A Falkirk sheriff has dismissed an action by the former trustees of an Islamic centre seeking their reinstatement as trustees following their expulsion at a members’ meeting after finding that the sheriff court was not the appropriate jurisdiction for the action. Mohammed Imtiaz and two other

A reclaiming motion by a oil and gas businessman who had an action for damages, the largest in Scottish legal history, from an unlawful means conspiracy refused by a commercial judge has been refused by the Inner House of the Court of Session after the court ruled there was no error in the original

A Dundee sheriff has refused an appeal by a trust against a decision of the Scottish ministers to allow a community body to exercise the right to purchase derelict land in St Andrews owned by the trust, in the first appeal of its kind in Scotland. Forthtay Ltd Employee Trust, which owned a plot of l

A commercial judge has imposed an additional uplift on the judicial expenses of a company group that abandoned before proof an £85 million action alleging an unlawful means conspiracy on the part of eleven defenders after finding that its conduct in the action had been unreasonable. Mex Group

A couple who leased a property in Renfrewshire who argued that their landlords had breached the Tenancy Deposit Schemes (Scotland) Regulations 2011 by transferring their deposit from one approved scheme to another without telling them have lost an appeal to the Upper Tribunal against a decision that

A woman with hydrocephalus and spina bifida who had her level of care reassessed after moving to a new local authority area has lost a judicial review challenge against the approach taken by her new Council in assessing her required level of care after a lord ordinary ruled the authority had not act

A Hamilton sheriff has found that a defender in an action for disqualification from directorship was in contempt of court after he took photographs of witnesses for the pursuer and posted them alongside derogatory comments about the weight and integrity of one of them on two social media accounts. G

The Supreme Court has ruled that the term “woman” as it appears in the Equality Act 2010 refers solely to persons who were born female and does not include transgender women, after a challenge to a Scottish gender representation act and its associated statutory guidance was brought to th

The Inner House of the Court of Session has restored the decision of a children’s panel that determined that a father subject to an Order for Lifelong Restriction for repeatedly raping his child’s mother was not a relevant person obliged to attend a children’s hearing in respect of

A lord ordinary has ruled that a woman who claimed that a farmer who died intestate had promised her the majority of his estate before his death had not established a legally binding engagement sufficient to enforce a promise to that effect against his executrix dative. Pursuer Louise Davies raised

A commercial judge has dismissed parts of a claim brought by a contractor against the Port of Aberdeen in relation to a settlement dispute between them but appointed a proof in respect of the overall claim. Dragados UK Ltd sought payment of just over £1.247 million in terms of a Settlement Agr

The owners of a Category A listed country house in Ayrshire have lost a judicial review challenge against a purported decision of a local authority that a 2004 grant of planning permission imposing conditions on the development of the estate remained extant after a lord ordinary ruled the letter all

A self-employed plasterer who fractured his skull and sustained a brain injury falling from height has lost an appeal in the High Court of England and Wales against a one third deduction from his award of damages for contributory negligence. Charles Lee suffered the injury while working at the prope