A woman who was cleared of a gruesome unsolved murder faces having her baby in jail after she admitted breaking her community payback order.
Angela Newlands, who is due to give birth around the turn of the year, has been warned she may be jailed when she is sentenced next month.
Heavily pregnant Newlands – who was cleared of killing her lover’s sister Annalise Johnstone – admitted failing to carry out her previously imposed court order.
When she appeared at Perth Sheriff Court, Sheriff James Macdonald told her she risked being jailed two days before the baby is due.
Solicitor John McLaughlin, defending, said: “The situation is she is now very heavily pregnant. She has had two recent scans.
“One gave her due date as December 18. The second scan suggested January, but in fact she is going for another scan at Perth Royal Infirmary next Friday.”
Mr McLaughlin said Newlands fell pregnant while serving a curfew imposed as part of the original sentence, which she has already breached once before.
He said the relationship was marked by violence and she moved around the country several times to flee her partner.
Sheriff Macdonald said: “The best thing to do here is to order a full set of new reports. All sentencing options will be open on that occasion.”
Newlands admitted missing three meetings with her supervising social worker on September 3 and 10 and October 1. Sentence was deferred until December 16.
She was previously put on an eight month curfew – from 7pm to 7am daily – and under supervision for a year when she admitted failing to carry out a social work order.
Newlands was originally ordered to carry out 180 hours unpaid work in the community in September 2019 when she admitted trying to hide her identity by giving police a false ID.
She was also banned from driving for 11 months. Newlands had tried to pin the blame on her sister Danielle when she was caught driving the wrong way on a one-way street while she was already banned.
But despite her claim they were often mistaken for each other, the officer recognised Newlands, 30, and knew she and her boyfriend Jordan Johnstone had been charged with murdering Annalise, 22.
Annalise’s body was dumped at the Maggie Wall’s Witch Monument in Dunning, Perthshire in May 2018. Her throat was cut and she had fatal injuries.
Newlands was cleared of the murder in May last year after a judge at the High Court ruled there was insufficient evidence to convict her of the crime.
The murder charge against Johnstone – who admitted carrying his dead sister’s body for two miles and dumping her by a roadside – was found not proven.
Johnstone, 25, told the High Court he cradled his younger sister in his arms and had tried to staunch the flow of blood from a wound.
Late last year, Police Scotland confirmed that a new search had been carried out near the monument as part of a continuing investigation into the killing.
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