SENTENCING STATEMENTS

On sentencing, Lord Arthurson said: 

"On 2 June 2025 at Inverness High Court, on the first day of the float period of a dedicated floating trial diet, you tendered a plea of guilty to an amended charge of culpable homicide.  You were on that date remanded to secure accommodation and a criminal justice social work report and risk assessment were requested by the court.

You were at the time of this crime aged 15.  You are today aged 17.  You have no previous convictions.  The report material to which I have already referred is now available and is in largely positive terms.

Turning to the facts of this matter, I do not propose to rehearse the detailed agreed narrative which was read out in court on the date of your guilty plea, but certain details bear repetition this morning.

Having earlier taken alcohol, just after midnight on 17 June 2023 at an address in Alness, you attacked Mr Scott Mitchell by repeatedly punching him to the face, causing him to fall to the ground.  As he lay on the ground, unable to defend himself, you continued repeatedly to punch and kick your victim’s face with significant force, all as you screamed with anger.  In due course you left the scene of your crime, leaving Mr Mitchell to be found by police officers as he lay unresponsive at the scene with severe facial injuries. Despite extensive medical attention from police officers and ambulance personnel, Mr Mitchell’s life was pronounced extinct at 0109 hours.

You had struck your victim forcibly and repeatedly while he lay on the ground alongside a wall.  Heavy blood staining was found on forensic examination, with an impact spatter pattern comprising vast numbers of assorted sized blood spots deposited low down on the wall up to a height of approximately 56cm from the ground, with further patterns of blood spots present on the ground radiating away from the heavy staining.  There was nothing regarding the blood staining to indicate that your victim had at any time been upright and moving after he began to bleed.  Your victim’s blood was found on the legs of your jogging bottoms in the form of widespread blood staining, with a concentration of blood spots on the lower legs of these jogging bottoms.

Post‑mortem examination disclosed significant blunt force injury to your victim’s face.  He had suffered a dislocation of his lower jaw and extensive comminuted fracturing of the facial skeleton, including detachment of the upper jaw.  There were multiple pieces of bone fragment embedded in the soft tissue of your victim’s face.  These injuries were the result of the application of significant force over a sustained period.  The cause of death was blunt force facial injuries.  The extensive fracturing of the facial skeleton could have resulted in upper airway occlusion and respiratory compromise, due to both the collapse of airway structures and the aspiration of blood into the airways.

Mr Scott Mitchell was aged 48 and resided with his mother.  She tragically died on the first anniversary of the killing by you of her son.  Mr Mitchell was the father of an adult daughter and a 15 year old son.  He was an engineer who had worked all of his life.  He was a respected member of the community who had raised thousands of pounds for local charities. He enjoyed hillwalking, cycling, running and golf. I have read moving impact statements prepared by Mr Mitchell’s sister and brother. Mr Mitchell will be deeply missed by his family and all those who knew and loved him. No sentence that the court has power to impose today can come remotely close to remedying their bereavement.

Your senior counsel has advanced detailed submissions in mitigation on your behalf this morning.  In particular, I note and take into account what has been said by him regarding your own reasonable perception of events at the locus that night, and that perception is of course unchallenged by the Crown, and indeed that appears to be the basis for the Crown’s acceptance of your plea of guilty to a lesser crime than that of the crime of murder originally libelled against you in this case. I further note what has been said by your senior counsel regarding your challenging upbringing and adverse childhood experiences; the important matter of your age today and at the time of the index offence; and your sincerely held and expressed remorse. Although your senior counsel did not expressly refer to this final point, I take into account further your adherence to a pre-remand period of curfew of something under two years by way of petition bail condition.

In the whole circumstances it is, however, plain that the only appropriate disposal in this case requires to be a substantial custodial one.  This was a savage, sustained and merciless piece of sheer brutality on your part, whereby you punched and kicked your victim to death, thereby causing the collapse of his facial structures and therefore potentially an upper airway occlusion and respiratory compromise.  To put matters in less technical but no less applicable language, you battered his face to a pulp while you were, as you yourself later stated in terms to a forensic medical examiner, out of control with anger.

Standing the exceptional gravity of the features of this crime which I have already described, I regard this offence as properly to be located towards the very upper end of culpability in respect of crimes of this nature.  In the interests of transparency let me be clear: had I been sentencing you as an adult, notwithstanding your status as a first offender, the reasonable belief referred to by your senior counsel, and the absence of any libelled weapon in this case, the notional headline custodial tariff selected by this court would have been one in the region of up to 10 years. Taking into account your age today and in particular your age at the time of the index offence, and the undoubted relevant engagement in this case of the Young Persons Sentencing Guideline, I select instead an actual headline tariff of 7 years and 6 months.  Taking into account the conventional approach to previous curfew condition adherence, that headline figure becomes one of 6 years and 9 months. Finally, although no request for discount in respect of the timing of the plea was sought, nevertheless, having regard to the late timing and restricted but residual utility of your guilty plea, I now sentence you to a period of 6 years and 6 months detention.  That sentence will be backdated to 2 June 2025, being the date of your tendering of that plea and of your initial remand into custody in these proceedings.

As you embark upon your sentence, as your senior counsel put matters this morning by way of atonement for this crime, you would do well to remember this: Mr Mitchell died a terrible and lonely violent death at your hands. One day you will complete your sentence and return home to resume your life. That prospect is something wholly denied to Mr Mitchell and his grieving family, entirely due to your own appalling criminal behaviour in this tragic case."