Judge finds that mentally impaired man murdered West Calder woman and attempted to conceal or destroy evidence

About this case:

• Citation:
  [2024] HCJ 4
• Judgment:
  External link
• Court:
  High Court of Justiciary
• Judge:
  Lord Mulholland

The accused, Michael Porchetta, was deemed unfit for trial after a preliminary hearing in March 2024 following concerns about his mental cognition supported by five expert witnesses. The three charges against him libelled that he assaulted and murdered the deceased Aimee Cannon in the early hours of 7 May 2022, stole a pair of her pants and her mobile phone, and attempted to conceal or destroy evidence of her murder.

The case was considered by Lord Mulholland, with J McIlroy KC appearing for the Crown and G Allan KC and L McQuade for the accused.

Bloodstained jeans

The body of Ms Cannon, who was known to the accused and had taken drugs with him on previous occasions, was discovered by her father on the evening of 7 May after she did not answer her phone and he forced his way into her property. A post mortem examination concluded that the cause of death was multiple sharp force injuries, with at least 45 identifiable stab wounds and some wounds identified as defensive wounds.

After the accused was examined in police custody on 10 May, he was found to have several wounds and abrasions consistent with being caused in the early hours of 7 May. DNA attributable to the deceased was also recovered from the accused’s trainers. The deceased’s phone was recovered from a bin in Blackburn, West Lothian, on 10 May. A pair of her pants was found in a carrier bag within the accused’s outdoor bin on 11 May.

Evidence was led from the uncle of the accused, Robert Nicol, with whom the accused and his sister Gabriella lived. Mr Nicol said that on the afternoon of 8 May, the accused told him that he heard someone had been murdered up the street and that he had been at the girl’s house on Friday 6 May to take drugs.  On 7 May the accused’s sister, a trained oncology nurse, noticed what she thought were bloodstains on the accused’s jeans, which he denied.

The accused was seen at the deceased’s house on four occasions between the last known time she was alive, based on a social media post made at 4:09am, the discovery of her body. On three of those occasions, he was seen carrying large carrier bags and a backpack. He also withdrew £10 from the deceased’s bank account using her card. The bin in which the phone was found was on a route used by him on his way to work.

No evidence was led for the defence, which made a no case to answer submission at the conclusion of the Crown evidence solely in relation to the theft of the pants and mobile phone. In respect of the charge of murder, the Crown submitted that given the use of a knife and the number of blows, the attack could properly be described as murderous. Even without the forensic evidence, the evidence of the accused returning home with bloodstained jeans and the inconsistent accounts he had given of his movements created a strong case.

Inescapable inference

In his decision, Lord Mulholland began by observing: “Given that this is a circumstantial case, my approach is to look at all the evidence in combination with other evidence that I accept and then decide what inference, if any, it bears. There was very little challenge to the evidence that I have set out in detail above. The challenge has been to what interpretation, if any, it bears, what reasonable interpretation should be drawn by me.”

Summarising the evidence against he accused, he continued: “It is an inescapable inference that I drew that the accused Michael Porchetta did the acts set out in charge one and murdered the deceased. I also drew the inferences that the accused committed the acts set out in charges 2 and 3.”

Addressing the possibility that the accused could have discovered the deceased injured or dead in her home, Lord Mulholland said: “There was no evidence whatsoever to support such a hypothesis and the accused did not mention this at all to the various people he spoke to in the aftermath of the incident. If this had happened, in support of the lines of cross-examination, then he would surely have called for help, he would have told his friends and family and he would have made himself available to the police at an early stage to assist. This can all be said despite his impaired cognition.”

He concluded: “This was a vicious, frenzied attack on a defenceless woman in her own home carried out by the accused whom she regarded as her friend. Having murdered Aimee Cannon, he then tried to cover his tracks by disposing of her underwear and mobile phone and attempting to clean his bloodstained trainers. Unfortunately for him, this did not work. The evidence told its own story and was the deceased’s voice from the grave. It was clearly murder having regard to the weapon(s) used, the multitude of blows, the location of the injuries and the nature of the injuries.”

Having held beyond reasonable doubt that the accused did the acts libelled in the indictment, the case was continued to allow the making of psychiatric reports.