A woman who was jailed for participating in a brutal murder bid on a sleeping man has lost an appeal to have her conviction quashed.
Ashley Duncan, 25, was jailed for six years in October 2017 after being convicted of the attempted murder of Jordan Jones at a house in Aberdeen in May 2016.
She and co-accused Matthew Donaldson and Lee Hutchison repeatedly punched, kicked and stamped on Mr Jones at a property in the city’s Auldearn Place.
The trio were convicted at the High Court in Edinburgh.
Hutchison received 11 years and Donaldson was given eight years.
Lawyers for Duncan believed she was a victim of a miscarriage of justice and went to the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh in a bid to have her conviction quashed.
On Wednesday, defence advocate Jonathan Crowe told appeal judges Lord Carloway, Lord Turnbull and Lord Menzies that they should overturn her conviction.
Mr Crowe said the evidence led in the case showed that Ms Duncan was provoked and that Lady Scott should have given legal directions to jurors about this.
The court was told that if jurors had briefed about this then they may have returned a verdict of guilty to the lesser charge of assault to severe injury under provocation.
However, the appeal judges disagreed with Mr Crowe’s submissions.
Lord Carloway said: “We will refuse the appeal. We will issue our reasons why we have refused this appeal in writing later.”
