Michelle Dickinson was jailed for trying to kill her son

Three judges, headed by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf, granted Michelle Dickinson permission to appeal against verdicts of attempted murder and child cruelty, returned by a Liverpool Crown Court jury a year ago.

Dickinson, 31, from Seascale, who was said to suffer from the attention-seeking disorder Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome, was said to have duped doctors into prescribing medication for her son Michael, after wrongly claiming he had epilepsy at the age of three.

Trial judge Mr Justice Pitchers told her she had caused Michael years of misery and reduced a normal little boy to "a pitiful state".

He said she must serve at least eight years and four months in jail before being considered for parole.

The attempted murder charge related to her interfering with his feeding tube as he was rushed to hospital in an ambulance.

Michael eventually died in hospital aged seven in October 2000, after spending his final months on a life-support machine.

Dickinson's application for leave to challenge the length of her sentence, was adjourned by the judges pending the outcome of the conviction appeal, a date for which has yet to be set.