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As an aside, if it's the same Sybil Spicer, she was a teacher at Middlefield School in Aberdeen during WW2. She was seriously injured in a bombing raid on 21st April 1943 while on fire watch duty, and lost a leg as a result. She had a prosthetic fitted, and returned to teaching afterwards.

Hang on - I think you'll know this already! Just looked at the profile name.

This is a frustrating one, isn't it! Her children would surely have known that she was indeed deceased by the time they were married, so the window really should only be from 1921 to 1931. It does seem strange that the informant on Charles Milne's death is his sister-in-law, especially as he died in hospital, but might explain why Jessie is given as Jessie Maitland, rather than Leith.*

*Edited to add - Jessie would have been Maitland, as her mother later married her father!

However, if something happened between 1921 and 1931, as Charles and Jessie don't seem to be living together, then it may be that the children lost touch with their mother and assumed that she had died. Widening the date range at at Scotland's People centre might be an idea, as you'll be able to view more certificates that way, including those beyond the cut off dates.

Could she have gone to prison? Newspapers might have something, it'd be worth a look if you've not done so.

What's also frustrating is that the Aberdeen city poor records for that time are very patchy, with no real records surviving. There is a list at the city archives (archives [at] aberdeencity.gov.uk) of people who were in Oldmill and in receipt of poor relief under reference C/16/3/1. They are currently closed as they're moving premises, but it's worth an email to them. There are also Woodend Hospital records held at NHS Grampian Archives (gram.archives [at] nhs.scot) - they might not give you any more information than is on Charles's death cert, but again worth an enquiry.

No problem!

I would argue that all the material held by any public funded Archives IS in the Public Domain.

The material held does not belong to the Archives it belongs to the Public.

People who donate material to public Archives surely do so to enable interested parties to have access to said material for their research and knowledge and by doing so they freely gave their possessions for the great good and that any public Archive does not have the right to put limitations on what use said material can and cannot be used for as long as it does not violate the wishes of the donor family.

Acknowledge the source of the repository of the material by all means

The Archives remit being the preserving and safeguarding documents and items freely donated into its care.

There are many collections held in archives which are accessible to the public which have restrictions placed on them, either by the depositor (eg, copyright, being asked before allowing an item to be looked at, and so on) or by various pieces of legislation, such as what is now GDPR. Many collections, including photographs, will have been deposited with no thought to copyright. Photographs in particular are a minefield, but so are things like orphan works and unpublished material. Copyright on some items that are classed as 'old' can last until 2039.

Material in public archives doesn't belong to the public. That's like saying houses or property owned by a public authority belongs to the public, which isn't true - they're for the use of the public, in the same way their archives are.