In 2011 AZ was convicted after trial of a single charge of the murder of her newborn son. The court sentenced her to life imprisonment with a punishment part of 15 years.

The applicant applied to the commission in 2020, seeking a review of her conviction. Her application was based primarily on psychological work that the Scottish Prison Service had conducted during her imprisonment.

That work had concluded that it was likely that the applicant’s decision-making at the time of the offence had been affected seriously by conditions that had not been diagnosed before the trial. The applicant suggested to the commission that this might amount to fresh evidence. She considered that she ought to have been convicted of culpable homicide instead of murder.

The commission conducted a lengthy and wide-ranging review of the case. In 2021, the commission sought the opinion of a forensic psychiatrist. The psychiatrist formed a view similar to that of the SPS psychologist. The commission believes that the new psychiatric and psychological evidence is significant and considers that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred.