Case Reports

The Inner House of the Court of Session has ruled that the required nine-month devilling period prior to becoming a fully qualified advocate does not interrupt the continuous 10-year period for which a person requires to be legally qualified in order to become a sheriff in Scotland. The question aro

A commercial judge has dismissed part of a man’s claim against two green energy companies for negligently installing wind turbines in the wrong locations after ruling that he could not claim for losses accrued by business vehicles he had formerly owned in part. Arthur Simmers raised an action

A haulage company has won an Employment Appeal Tribunal challenge against a decision to award £10,000 to a former employee for injury to feelings after a dispute arose over a reorganisation of employment roles at the North Lanarkshire depot where she was employed, and reduced the award to &pou

A man serving a five-year prison sentence who had a further two-year sentence imposed on him after pleading guilty to an additional offence of being involved in organised crime had had his second sentence extended after a Crown appeal against its leniency. Ian Sweeney, who acted as a tracker and &ld

The High Court of Justiciary has refused appeals by two people convicted of the murder of a 14-year-old girl in 1996 and sentenced to life imprisonment after finding that there was sufficient evidence for convictions on the basis of art and part liability. Andrew Kelly and Donna Brand were convicted

A lord ordinary has ruled that a waste management company is entitled to sue the Scottish government over its decision to delay the coming into effect of the Deposit Return Scheme for Scotland. Biffa Waste Services Ltd, which committed around £51.4 million towards implementation of the DRS, so

A sheriff has concluded that the death of a man who fell from his fishing boat while trying to rescue a crew member could have been prevented if the crew of his vessel had been more familiar with the use of its man overboard recovery equipment. Lachlan Robertson died from the effects of immersion in

A dispute over an incorrectly served Low Emission Zone penalty charge notice that was ruled unenforceable by the First-tier and Upper Tribunals has been remitted to the First-tier Tribunal for reconsideration after a successful appeal by a local authority to the Inner House of the Court of Session.

The High Court of Justiciary has increased the length of an extended sentence imposed on a man who groomed a teenage girl into having sex with him and made indecent communications towards another person he believed to be a young girl, after the Crown appealed against the leniency of the original sen

A 16-year-old who was convicted of culpable homicide after he headbutted and punched an Elgin bus driver who later died from his injuries has lost an appeal against his sentence. NRL was detained for four years and four months, reduced from a headline sentence of six years and six months, after plea

The High Court of Justiciary has answered in the negative two questions relating to whether the Crown had acted unlawfully in the separate prosecution of two teenagers in Dundee Sheriff Court by acting in a manner said to be unlawful under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (I

A sheriff has determined that the deaths of two young people in a young offenders institution in Falkirk could have been avoided if reasonable precautions had been taken, and made 25 recommendations to improve the Scottish Prison Service. Katie Allan and William Brown, aged 21 and 16 respectively, b

A judge in the Outer House of the Court of Session has determined that an Icelandic woman who was divorced from her husband by decree in absence in Dunfermline Sheriff Court in 2021 was entitled to have that decree reduced. Linda Hafthorsdotir sought to reduce her divorce from Bjarni Eyvindsson, aft

The Inner House of the Court of Session has refused an appeal against a lord ordinary’s decision to refuse to reduce a decision of Glasgow City Council not to conduct an Environmental Impact Assessment in respect of the demolition of four tower blocks in Maryhill. Petitioner and reclaimer Caz

A commercial judge has disqualified a man from acting as a company director for seven years after finding he had used illegal migrant workers as the majority of the workforce of his takeaway business while he was director. Qiqing was made the subject of a petition for a disqualification order by the