WILLIAM McDERMOTT v. HER MAJESTY'S ADVOCATE

On 10 January 1997 the appellant was convicted in the High Court at Glasgow on a charge of murder. Since he was 15 years of age he was sentenced to be detained for life in accordance with section 205(2) of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995. The charge of which he was convicted was in the following terms:

"On 7 September 1996 at Garry Drive, Paisley you did assault Scott Ferguson, 9 Maree Road, Foxbar, Paisley, chase him, and repeatedly kick him on the body, and repeatedly strike him on the head and body with a knife or similar instrument whereby he was so severely injured that he died at the Royal Alexandra Hospital, Paisley later same date and you did murder him and you did previously evince malice and ill-will towards him".

He appealed against his conviction on a number of grounds, but the only one which has been insisted upon is that, for reasons which we will consider later in this opinion, the trial judge should have withdrawn the indictment from the jury.

On 16 September 1996 the appellant made a judicial declaration denying his involvement and dealing with statements which had allegedly been made by him in the hearing of police officers during the journey by police vehicle from Stranraer to Paisley. On 24 September 1996 the appellant was brought before the sheriff for judicial examination.

At this point it is useful to refer to the provisions of section 36 of the 1995 Act which relate to the judicial examination. Subsection (2) permits the prosecutor to ask questions in order to determine