Culpable homicide sentences cut over Gordon Morrice death

A mother and a schoolboy jailed for killing a man wrongly accused of being a paedophile have had their sentences cut after an appeal.

Gordon Morrice, 58, died months after being severely injured at playing fields in Aberdeen's Golf Road in 2010.

Williamina Stewart, 37, was jailed for 10 years and Paul Noble, 18, for eight after they admitted culpable homicide.

Stewart's sentence was halved, and Noble's sentence was cut to six years.

The attack happened after Mr Morrice asked to bounce on a child's trampoline near his flat in the city.

Appeal judges in Edinburgh ruled that Lord Uist had been too severe while passing sentence in March.

Lord Uist said at the time: "This shameful episode of violence was nothing other than vigilante justice, or, in other words, injustice in action."

Judge Lord Carloway told the Court of Criminal Appeal that vigilante violence had to be discouraged, but the sentence imposed on Stewart was excessive.

Noble's attack had been "significantly greater", said the appeal judges.