Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 09 March 2022
The debate is about the fundamental relationship between the individual and the state and about whether Governments and public institutions have a duty of transparency and honesty to those who are affected when something goes wrong. It is also about whether the families of those who have died have a right to information and to know the truth, and it is about the equality of arms between the individual and the state in any legal proceedings that look at what has gone wrong. The debate is not about undermining front-line staff who provide public services but about the rights of families when there are state-linked deaths, whether that be in the NHS or any other sector.
I will refer to a few recent deaths in custody that are relevant to the debate. Katie Allan was a third-year student at the University of Glasgow from East Renfrewshire who died in Polmont in 2018, and we still await a fatal accident inquiry. She was sentenced for drink driving and died by suicide after a catalogue of failures. Warnings that she was vulnerable were not heeded.
Allan Marshall also died in custody. The sheriff said that his death was entirely preventable and that guards involved in his death were “mutually and consistently dishonest.”
We hope that the fatal accident inquiry in the case of Sheku Bayoh will go ahead later this year. Again, that involves the state and the actions of the police force.
The Parliament has discussed death in custody in the past, and it has made attempts to improve fatal accident inquiries. I was not involved in those discussions, but I know that the average time between death and a fatal accident inquiry was 509 days on average between 2005 and 2008 whereas, since the 2016 legislation, the length of time has actually increased. It is clear that the issues need to be considered again.
The proposal that is before us calls for a charter for families who have been bereaved through public tragedy, which would be binding on all public bodies. It asks for improved access to legal advice and assistance so that bereaved families can take part in public inquiries. It asks for evidence from public inquiries to be taken into account in criminal trials. It asks for an extension of the duty of candour to bodies such as the police.