A TRANSGENDER pro-independence campaigner from Alloa has been allowed by a sheriff to withdraw her guilty plea – tendered earlier this year – to making indecent images of children using AI.
Amelia Connolly, who is also the Scottish Green Party's former equality, diversity and inclusion officer, is now likely to face trial by jury.
The 23-year-old sobbed as the decision, which followed a legal battle lasting nearly five months, was announced.
In April Connolly – born male but referred to as female – pleaded guilty at Falkirk Sheriff Court to making or downloading indecent pseudo-photographs of children and sentence was deferred for reports.
Four AI-generated images allegedly showing a female child's face on an adult body posing sexually were said to have been found on her phone.
She was not shown the four images before tendering her plea.
Connelly, who has a number of medical conditions and uses a wheelchair, told the Falkirk sheriff she “did not know” if she was guilty or not but agreed to plead guilty after further discussions with her then solicitor.
Within weeks she engaged different lawyers and ping-ponged between Falkirk, Stirling and Alloa sheriff courts while she sought to change her plea to not guilty.
At one point she spent time on remand in prison after allegedly breaching a bail order connected to the case.
Today a sheriff at Stirling agreed she could substitute a “not guilty” plea.
Sheriff Keith O'Mahony said that there was no secure basis for treating her initial plea "as an informed acceptance of guilt”.
He heard that a defence cybercrime expert had updated his advice since Connolly first appeared.
He said the updated report exposed “a genuine issue”, casting doubt as to whether the images truly were indecent images of children.
Defence agent Natasha Martin said that the images had arrived on Connolly's computer “without any kind of search or attempt to ingather”.
Connolly earlier stated they had been sent to her by online trolls.
Miss Martin said: “My position is that there was an error when the plea was tendered and the most appropriate course would be to allow the plea to be withdrawn so that the matter can go before a jury.”
She submitted that the sheriff could allow the withdrawal of a guilty plea in exceptional circumstances – “for example where it can be shown it was tendered under some real error or misconception”.
Prosecutor Rachel Wallace opposed the defence motion, saying the plea had been tendered by Connolly after legal advice and “express confirmation” was obtained from Connolly by the sheriff presiding at the time.
Sheriff O'Mahony said that the defence position was that there was now information “that there may not have been a crime here at all”.
He said: “Legal advice and express confirmation are important safeguards but they are not necessarily decisive.
“As I understand it, her former agents advised her to plead guilty to the making of four AI generated images.
“She was not shown these images.
“When asked to confirm her plea her initial position was to say, 'I don't know'.”
He said Connolly had long-standing diagnoses of autism, dyspraxia and other conditions and according to an expert “apparent verbal agreement in a stressful legal setting could still co-exist with an incomplete understanding”.
He said that Connolly's “I don't know” was “unmistakably equivocal”.
Sheriff O'Mahony said: “Considering all these factors - the unresolved issue of whether these images are indecent, the lack of identification of these four images to her, the specific medical conditions under which she labours and the circumstances in which the plea was tendered - I am satisfied there is not a secure basis for treating it as an informed acceptance of guilt.”
The case was continued to a procedural hearing on October 20 at Stirling, when a trial date will be set.
Connolly, a Tik Tok digital creator, was voted onto the Scottish Young Greens National Council as Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Officer last year.
She was suspended from the party after officials became aware of the case.
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