Solemn procedure – Culpable homicide – Provocation – Self-defence – Judge's charge. High Court of Justiciary: Refusing an appeal against conviction by an appellant who was convicted of culpable homicide, possession of a knife and attempting to defeat the ends of justice, the court rejected contentions that the trial judge should have directed the jury on provocation and that he had erred in directing them that fatal force could not be used to repel an attack that was obviously not life threatening; however, the court held that, having regard to the appellant's youth at the time of the offence (he was aged 16) the sentence of 9 years' detention the judge selected was excessive, and it quashed that sentence and substituted one of 7 years' detention.