Prosecutors are pressing ahead with the trial of a woman accused of slashing child killer Theresa Riggi – despite her death earlier this year.
Riggi was found dead in her room at a secure hospital in Nottinghamshire in March.
The 50-year-old was locked up for 16 years after she admitted stabbing her three children, eight-year-old twins Austin and Luca and five-year-old Cecilia to death after moving from the family home in Westhill, Aberdeenshire to Edinburgh amid a bitter custody dispute.
She was initially sent to Cornton Vale, Stirling but was later moved to a secure unit in Edinburgh after allegedly being attacked. She was then secretly transferred to Nottinghamshire late last year.
Now prosecutors have confirmed they are as “ready as ever” to pursue their case against one of her alleged attackers, Angela Hamilton.
Hamilton, 40, will go on trial next month accused of permanently disfiguring Riggi in an alleged razor attack at Cornton Vale Prison in November 2011.
It is alleged Hamilton, 40, pulled Riggi’s hair, and repeatedly struck her on the face and head with razor.
The case was previously deferred while Hamilton was at a psychiatric hospital, but called at Stirling Sheriff Court yesterday.
Her solicitor Martin Morrow said: “When her case last called Miss Hamilton was absent as at that point she had just been admitted to a hospital and the case was adjourned on that basis.
“Although she is no longer in hospital I requested a report from her consultant psychiatrist but I expect that is not going to give me any indication that she is not fit enough to stand trial, so on that basis I am prepared for trial.”
Fiscal depute Susan Dickson told the court: “We are as ready as we are ever going to be in this case.
“The information from Crown counsel is that there is sufficient evidence to proceed without the complainer and without using hearsay.”
Riggi pleaded guilty to three counts of culpable homicide under diminished responsibility in 2011.
She stabbed each child eight times, before trying to cover up their deaths with a gas explosion. She then leapt from a balcony at their second-floor flat.
An inquest into Riggi’s death is due to be complete by next month.