Judge with highest number of quashed convictions

Lord Hardie has had eight convictions and 20 sentences successfully appealed. Picture: Ian Rutherford

Lord Hardie has had more convictions overturned and jail terms amended than any other High Court judge.

In the past five years alone, the peer, who retired earlier this year, had eight convictions and 20 sentences successfully appealed.

Trials in which appeal judges quashed judgements or altered sentences include that of wife killer Nabeel Khan, and Jennifer Liehne, who was accused of smothering her infant daughter.

Lord Carloway was next with seven convictions overturned since 2008 and eight sentences successfully challenged.

Lord Brailsford had four convictions quashed and 15 sentences challenged in the last five years.

Information obtained from the Scottish Court Service showed that between 2008 and 2012, there were 301 successful appeals in High Court cases, including 86 overturned convictions.

At Sheriff Court level, there were 1,619 appeals granted with 130 convictions quashed.

Sheriff Lindsay Foulis, who sits at Perth Sheriff Court, had two convictions and 39 sentences successfully challenged.

Sheriff John Herald, who presided at Rothesay Sheriff Court until his retirement last year, had four convictions overturned and 20 sentences appealed successfully.

John Scott QC, one of Scotland’s foremost criminal defence lawyers, said: “In an ideal world we wouldn’t need an appeal court but in reality we do.

“These figures show that mistakes do happen and when they do there is a system by which they can be overturned.”

He added: “I am sure that within the legal profession there are concerns about particular sheriffs, but overall we have a system that works pretty well.

“I would say that the appeal court is still used relatively sparingly in comparison to the total number of cases.”

In 2011, the appeal court ruled Lord Hardie had failed to explain properly to the jury some of the complex medical and legal issues involved in the case of Ms Liehne.

Ms Liehne from Edinburgh, was ruled to have suffered a miscarriage of justice by the Court of Criminal Appeal in May 2011.

She had been convicted of culpable homicide in 2006 over the death of her seven-month-old daughter in 1982.

The law lord was also found to have misdirected the jury over the differences between murder and culpable homicide in the trial of Khan.

Khan’s conviction for murdering his pathologist wife Iffat Kamal in December 2008 was thrown out because of the error, but he was later found guilty following a retrial in 2011.