Angelique Blin arrives for her Royal Court trial with defence counsel Advocate Peter Ferbrache. (Picture by Steve Sarre, 0981910)

A UNIQUE case of a woman who claimed to be unfit to plea split the jurats and left the presiding judge with the deciding vote.

After four hours of deliberation, the jurats were split 4-4 on whether immigration adviser Angelique Blin was mentally capable of standing trial.

As the jurats were a man down on the second day of the trial due to illness, Judge Russell Finch had the casting vote – and agreed with the defence that Miss Blin was not fit to stand trial.

Jurats took into account evidence given by two psychologists, Dr Saal Seneviratne from the UK at the request of the defence and Dr Quazi Haque on behalf of the Crown.

While they agreed Miss Blin needed treatment for mental health issues, they disagreed as to the extent her alcohol dependency affected her problems.

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