Medical evidence jury did not hear

The reason the jury in the Martin trial did not consider a manslaughter verdict was because the defence team were unable to present a medical case for "diminished responsibility".

Before the trial in April last year, Martin was examined by consultant psychiatrist Professor Anthony Maden who found no evidence of depression or mental illness.

The professor concluded that if Martin had been depressed in the past he had recovered without treatment, and there was nothing to show he had been depressed at the time of the shooting.

After this consultation, Martin refused to cooperate with another psychiatrist who had been instructed to examine him. Because of this, the then defence team could not offer a "diminished responsibility" option.

After his conviction, Martin's new defence team instructed another psychiatrist, Dr Philip Joseph, who diagnosed Martin's personality disorder and found he had suffered from bouts of depression throughout his adult life and was suffering from depression at the time of the killing, which exacerbated his paranoid personality disorder.

The Crown commissioned another report by Professor Maden who stuck by his original findings. Today the judges found that the new psychiatric evidence justified a finding that Martin's responsibility for the killing was substantially diminished and imposed a verdict of manslaughter.

They also cleared the QC conducting the defence in the jury trial, Anthony Scrivener, of any blame.

Mr Scrivener described the decision of Martin's new counsel, Michael Wolkind, QC, to attack his tactical approach to the trial as "a barrister's judgment which I don't complain about at all".

But he blamed publicist Max Clifford for painting too rosy a picture to Martin and raising his expectations that he would be acquitted in law: "This shows that it is better to listen to legal advice than the advice of a publicist."

Mr Scrivener said that Martin had been "perfectly entitled" to sack him as his counsel "having been told by a publicist he ought to win".

He denied that he had felt at all dismayed by the criticism levelled at him during Martin's appeal, which has now been rejected by the judges.

"You have to put up with that, but it was the first time it had ever happened to me," he said.