In September 1649, the legal proceedings against James Dik emerged within the parish of Borthwick, located in the county of Edinburgh. James was one of four individuals brought before the authorities during a period of heightened judicial activity surrounding allegations of witchcraft. While the surviving documentation for this case is sparse, the archival records confirm that he was formally processed within the legal framework of the time, with his name appearing alongside his co-accused in the judicial registers (C/JO/2803).
By late September of that same year, the case had progressed to the point of a recorded confession. Although the specific substance of this statement—and the details of the subsequent trial (T/JO/355)—have not been preserved in the historical record, the existence of the confession indicates that James participated in the formal inquisitorial process customary for such accusations in seventeenth-century Scotland. His case remains a notable fragment of the wider witch-hunting wave that swept through the Lothians during the mid-seventeenth century, serving as a documented instance of an individual caught within the rigorous ecclesiastical and secular scrutiny of the era.