Mitchell Skilling

A sheriff in the All-Scotland Sheriff Personal Injury Court at Edinburgh has refused a motion for an interim payment of expenses in an action with an agreed final accounting of £30,000 after finding that delays in assessment of tax by the Auditor of Court was not sufficient reason to grant an

The UK Supreme Court has ruled that the practice of the Scottish courts since 2013 in relation to the admission of evidence in trials for sexual offences is liable to infringe defendants’ rights under Article 6 ECHR but dismissed two appeals on that basis presented to the court after finding t

An English court has upheld a sentence imposed on a 16-year-old male for a prolonged assault on an older man recovering from a stroke but quashed six concurrent sentences imposed in respect of other offences considered at the same sentencing diet. It was argued on behalf of the appellant, referred t

The Court of Appeal of England and Wales has ruled that a party with an express right to terminate a contract could not lose that right in circumstances where it continued to perform following the termination in circumstances where it did not know that it had that contractual right, in an appeal by

The Sheriff Appeal Court has refused an appeal against a business tenant’s removal from shop premises in Edinburgh following an undefended irritancy action in the sheriff court after finding that a sheriff had correctly refused a reponing note lodged after the grant of decree in absence. Abo T

A fatal accident inquiry into the death of a transgender woman prisoner by self-inflicted plastic bag asphyxia has concluded that the Scottish Prison Service had unlawfully isolated her while deciding how to proceed with her custody arrangements and made 12 recommendations for improvement of SPS pr

A woman in Pitlochry has lost a judicial review challenge against the decision of her local authority to grant planning permission for a brewery and taproom to be located less than 100 metres south of her residence after it was ruled that there was no inadequacy in the reasons given for granting the

A commercial judge in an action by a landlord against their business tenant seeking damages worth over £12 million after the property was allegedly left in a bad state of repair has ruled that a clause in the schedule to the lease allowing the tenant to pay the landlord a certified sum instead

A solicitor who alleged that another solicitor had falsified documents in misconduct proceedings against her following her removal as her father’s attorney has lost a challenge against the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission’s decision not to investigate the matter. Margaret Horsley, wh

An appeal by a doctor seeking reduction of a sheriff’s finding in a fatal accident inquiry into the death of a young child from a rare cancer that the death could have been avoided had she referred the matter to the paediatric unit in Inverness has been refused by the Inner House of the Court

A sheriff sitting on the Upper Tribunal for Scotland has dismissed seven challenges to the refusal of property valuation changes sought by various Aberdeenshire businesses after a successful appeal against a decision to allow the challenges was made by the Assessor for Grampian Joint Valuation Board

The High Court of Justiciary has ruled that an accused who was taken into custody at his workplace and then searched by the police at his home address, for which they had a warrant, had not been subjected to an unlawful search, following a preliminary minute challenging the admissibility of evidence

A woman due to serve a prison sentence in Lithuania for the murder of her youngest daughter has lost a challenge to her extradition based on her mental health diagnosis and the effect of her retrial in a Scottish prosecution on the amount of time she had served in custody. Ineta Gavenaite, who had p

A sheriff has ordered a joiner hired to fit a kitchen in East Kilbride to pay just over £20,000 to the homeowner after determining that he had failed to meet the implied standard of work by not building plumb and square plasterboard walls and dismissed a claim for the remaining balance due. Pu

A convicted murderer who as a teenager played in the lower leagues of Scottish football, given a life sentence with a 22-year punishment part for the murder of his partner by serious, repeated physical attacks, has lost an appeal against his sentence after the High Court of Justiciary found that the