Christmas Day killer fails in bid to cut sentence

A WOMAN who stabbed her neighbour to death in Edinburgh on Christmas Day has failed in a bid to have her jail sentence cut.

Melissa Young was sentenced at the High Court in livingston. Picture: Lisa Ferguson

Melissa Young, 37, was ordered to serve at least 20 years before becoming eligible for parole by judge Lord Boyd at the High Court in Livingston in August 2014.

She murdered Alan Williamson at a flat in the city’s Glenure Loan on December 25 2013.

Young, who has a tattoo of the Virgin Mary on one arm and the Devil on the other,

stabbed Mr Williamson 29 times.

She claimed she saw a bright light and heard voices in her mind before attacking Mr Williamson. She atacked him after he rejected her Christmas present of a pair of unisex trainers and a copy of the Sun newspaper’s 2014 calendar.

Young admitted during proceedings that she wouldn’t have stabbed Mr Williamson if he had accepted the gifts.

Lawyers acting for Young went to the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh earlier this year in a bid to have Young’s sentence cut.

Her legal team argued that the sentence that had been imposed on Young was excessive.

But appeal judges ruled that Lord Boyd had acted legally.

In a written judgement issued on Tuesday by the appeal court, judge Lady Clark of Calton wrote: “We consider that the circumstances of this case, including the number of knife wounds, the location and depth of the wounds, the sustained brutality of the unprovoked attack, the absence of remorse and the appellant’s previous criminal record clearly demonstrate that the punishment part selected by the judge is not excessive.

“The punishment part is necessary to satisfy the requirements for retribution and deterrence.

“For these reasons we refused the appeal.”