Mitchell Skilling

A prisoner who was imprisoned in 1996 for murdering a young man with a knife in Renfrew has successfully petitioned for a judicial review of a decision of the Parole Board for Scotland’s not to release him on licence. DD, the petitioner, was aged 16 when he was convicted in June 1996 and was s

The family of a man who died of mesothelioma that alleged his condition was caused by asbestos exposure have lost an Inner House appeal against a decision that his former employer was not responsible for his condition. Nicola Watt and other pursuers averred that Lend Lease Construction Ltd, which pr

An Arbroath man who fell down an unlit communal staircase in his building at night has lost an appeal against a sheriff’s decision that the local authority responsible for the maintenance of the stairwell was not liable for the accident. Craig Hill argued in his case before the Sheriff Appeal

A Dundee sheriff has ruled that a sum of just over £27,000 paid by two property buyers to a fraudulent bank account in the belief that they were paying a legitimate house deposit did not constitute money transferred under an agreement to which the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 applie

The High Court of Justiciary has extended the punishment part of a life sentence imposed on a man jailed for murder by stabbing by a further five years after a Crown appeal against the sentence. Andrew Palfreman originally received a punishment part of 12 years after being convicted of the murder of

An English copyright judge has ruled that the 2019 John Lewis Christmas advert featuring a dragon unable to control its fire did not infringe the copyright of a children’s book author who had self-published a book with a similar premise. Fay Evans, who authored a work titled Fred the Fire-Snee

A tenant of a property in Cambuslang has been refused permission to appeal against his eviction and a payment order by the Upper Tribunal for Scotland after it found that no arguable ground of appeal had been made out. An order for eviction was made against David Hutcheson by the First-tier Tribunal

A reclaiming motion by a Scottish mother challenging the return of her two children to their father in the USA on the basis of a grave risk defence has been allowed by the Inner House of the Court of Session. Reclaimer SD was the original respondent in an action raised under the Hague Convention on

A former employee of the Scottish government has had her claim of harassment and victimisation on account of her race based on deliberate underpayment and unfair treatment dismissed by the Employment Tribunal. Claimant J Adegun, who was ethnically black, sought to establish that the Scottish Ministe

The Sheriff Appeal Court has refused most of an appeal by an estate management company challenging a sheriff’s decision that the majority of its claim against a former client for unpaid fees had been insufficiently specified to allow a proof, but allowed the appeal in relation to probation for

An Aberdeenshire landlord who was ordered to pay £2,400 to her South African tenant after being found in breach of tenancy deposit regulations has been refused permission to challenge the decision. Appellant Pei Tan argued that the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland had erred in finding that a p

A woman who fell onto her back while walking her employer’s dog after her shift had concluded has been unsuccessful in an action for over £345,000 before a personal injury sheriff. Donna Slater, aged 58, argued that her employer at Trossachs Holiday Park, Tracy Ann McNelis, owed her a du

An Algerian political activist who sought asylum in the UK on the basis of risk of persecution has been successful in a petition for judicial review seeking to challenge a decision of the Upper Tribunal not to allow him an appeal from the First-tier Tribunal. Petitioner AK, who had taken part in a n

The Sheriff Appeal Court has refused a challenge by the father of a five-year-old child to return with her mother to Poland following the end of the relationship. The appellant argued that the sheriff’s decision was plainly wrong, relying on 12 aspects of the judgment to establish that he had

The Inner House of the Court of Session has upheld an interlocutor directing the liquidator of a farming business to sell a plot of land to an agricultural tenant after a reclaiming motion was raised by the landlords. Appellants Joseph and Donalda Sweeney, who had been involved in a long-running dis