Melissa Young begins Christmas murder trial
A woman has gone on trial accused of a Christmas Day murder in Edinburgh after the Crown rejected her plea of guilty to culpable homicide.
Melissa Young, 37, admitted killing Alan Williamson at a flat in Glenure Loan on 25 December 2013.
Defence advocate Jim Keegan QC said the accused had formally offered to plead guilty to culpable homicide "by reason of abnormality of mind".
The jury was empanelled at the High Court in Livingston.
Jim Keegan QC said Ms Williamson, whose address was given as Cornton Vale women's prison, Stirling, denied murdering Mr Williamson, who lived in a neighbouring flat in Glenure Loan, Corstorphine, by abducting him, confining him in the flat against his will and repeatedly stabbing him on the body with a knife.
She also adhered to a plea of not guilty to abducting and assaulting Mr Williamson in an earlier alleged incident on 18 July 2013.
She denied falsely alleging he had stolen her house keys, confining him against his will and presenting a knife at him, placing him in such a state of apprehension for his safety that he jumped from the first floor balcony of the flat to the garden below.
The trial, before Lord Boyd, continues.