The judge: man who has presided over high-profile criminal cases

As A Senator of the College of Justice, Lord Uist is a member of Scotland's highest court, the Court of Session.

Born Roderick Francis Macdonald, he was educated at St Mungo's Academy in Glasgow - a Catholic state school. He went on to study law at Glasgow University and was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in 1975.

After serving as an Advocate Depute from 1987 to 1993, he was appointed a QC in 1989 and called to the Bar of England and Wales in 1997.

In 2001, he became a temporary judge and five years later a full-time judge in Scotland's Supreme Courts.

He has presided over several high-profile cases, including the murder trial of two men who killed Lithuanian woman Jolanta Bledaite, whose dismembered corpse was found washed up on the beach in Angus.

Last August, he jailed Raymond McPhee, from Aberdeen, for 12 years for attempted murder after he shook a six-week-old baby boy, leaving him with brain damage and permanently severely disabled.

And Lord Uist has not shied away from public comment, saying in 2008 he was "appalled" at the Crown's prosecution of a "volatile" 18-year-old for attempted murder in the sheriff court, where the maximum sentence is restricted to five years, after he stabbed his victim in the back. He said: "How anyone can take the view that attempted murder is worth five years or less, in any circumstances, I find difficult to believe."

In 2007, he criticised a GP for failing to properly examine a woman who died hours later of meningitis.