A lawyer who was sacked after causing a head-on smash is taking her former employers to an employment tribunal.
Moray-born Emma Knox claims she was unfairly dismissed from her job as the procurator fiscal for Inverness after admitting that she was to blame for a crash which nearly claimed her life.
She was left in a coma after the collision on the A862 Inverness-Beauly road in December 2012 and had to learn to walk again.
Now the 45-year-old former Elgin Academy pupil faces a battle against her former colleagues as she tries to regain a job with the Crown Office.
Mrs Knox earned about £3,200 a month as the top prosecutor in the Highland capital.
She declined to comment to comment about the case last night.
And a Crown Office spokesman said: “We do not discuss individual staffing matters with the media.”
However, according to paperwork lodged with the employment tribunal service, Mrs Knox, who was born and brought up in Elgin, is claiming for unfair dismissal and unpaid wages.
A four-day hearing is due to start on August 12 at the tribunal’s offices in Baron Taylor Street at Inverness – ironically just one floor above her former office.
The fiscal service was based on the first floor of 2 Baron Taylor Street for several years before moving to new premises at Leachkin Road.
Mrs Knox was initially paralysed from the neck down after the accident at Lentran near her Kirkhill home last year.
She cannot remember the horrific crash, which happened when she driving her Fiat 500 to work.
The mother-of-two suffered serious skull, neck and rib fractures, as well as brain and nerve damage.
She spent three days in a coma and months learning to walk again as part of her recovery.
Van driver Scott Henderson, who was also cut free from his vehicle, suffered a broken back but has since made a full recovery.
Mrs Knox was later find £500 and banned from driving for two years after admitting causing the accident by overtaking a lorry on a bend in the face of the oncoming van.
Mrs Knox, whose parents live in Elgin, got the top prosecutor’s job in Inverness in 2009.
She had hoped to return to her Crown Office role after her recovery, however earlier this year she revealed that she had a new position as a policy development worker at Cantraybridge College near Inverness.
The college provides rural skills training to young adults with autism and other learning disabilities.
Mrs Knox also raised more than £2,500 for Cantraybridge College and Headway Highland by walking unaided across the Kessock Bridge in March.
She set out to complete the challenge as a symbol of her recovery and took just 30 minutes to make the crossing.
Ms Knox graduated from Edimburgh University in 1992 with a law degree and an MA (Hons) in English.
She joined the Procurator Fiscal Service in 1994 as a trainee in the Crown Office and has since worked at offices across Lothian and Borders, Fife and Central Scotland.