WENDY KNOWLES OR GRAHAM v. HER MAJESTY'S ADVOCATE

[4] The applicant did not lodge a Notice of Intention to Appeal. She instructed her present agents on or about 17 July 2009, approximately six months after the conviction. Still no Notice was lodged. This cannot be regarded as without significance. At a distance of six months post conviction, those personally connected with the case and those involved in the criminal justice system generally would be entitled to assume that, barring exceptional circumstances, the trial process (including any appeal) was at an end.

[5] A legal aid certificate was obtained in September 2009, but the applicant does not appear to have been seen by agents until 2 December. It was not until July 2010 that the files from the applicant's previous agents were recovered. Thereafter, there was a further period before junior counsel was instructed in December 2010 and produced an opinion in the following month. Senior counsel was instructed in March 2011 and consultations took place in April, June and October of that year, during which there appear to have been efforts to obtain further psychiatric advice from a Professor Thomson.

[7] Professor Thomson produced a new report in May 2011; this time supporting a plea of diminished responsibility based upon a combination of her underlying disorder and battered partner syndrome. The obtaining of this report prompted further efforts to obtain a second opinion on whether it was possible that there had been a defence of diminished responsibility available at the time. A report from Dr Olley, consultant psychiatrist, dated June 2012, supported Professor Thomson's revised view.

[8] It was not until August and September 2013 that the appropriate application for an extension of time in which to lodge a Notice of Intention to Appeal was made and a Note of Appeal, setting out the relevant grounds (1995 Act, s 111(2A)), was lodged with Justiciary Office. The grounds stated remain rooted in defective representation.