Committee
Public Petitions Committee 12 January 2016
12 Jan 2016 · S4 · Public Petitions Committee
Item of business
New Petitions
Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act 2012 (Review) (PE1593)
Jeanette Findlay
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It is not possible from the Government figures to answer that question very directly, but I will do it as best I can. The 22 per cent rate is not a Government figure. We have taken all the charges across the whole lifetime of the act and the number of convictions and shown one as a proportion of the other. We have had discussions with the statisticians who work on this, and what the Government quotes as conviction rates are not conviction rates as we would understand them, which would cover, in any one period, how many people have been charged and what proportion of those have been convicted. As Paul Quigley has already pointed out, the timeframe that it takes for a case to go through the courts does not correspond with the reporting period of the stats. That is a complicated way of saying that the statistics that the Government quotes are low, but in fact the statistics are even lower because it is the more difficult cases and the ones that are likely to result in a not guilty verdict that take the longest. That is why we are saying that the rate is 22 per cent. You asked what the worst offences were. The Government statistics are divided up under the various elements that are mentioned in the act. The offence could be homophobia, racism or whatever it might be. Then there is an “other” category. The “other” category is, as I understand it, generally held to be support for what the Government calls terrorist organisations. As we understand it, that category is the only set of behaviours that would not otherwise have been covered by existing legislation. It is quite a small part; I think that in the last set of figures or the set before that, it was 17 per cent of behaviours, so it is not the majority. The majority of behaviours for which people are charged—not convicted—are behaviours that they could have been charged with under legislation that existed before the 2012 act. People could have been charged with racism, homophobia and so on potentially under breach of the peace, or with religiously aggravated charges under section 74 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003. People get a range of sentences. I think that there were only two prison sentences, which happened early on. The rest of the sentences have been community service orders, football banning orders and that type of thing. In a number of cases, there have been absolute discharges so there was no sentence whatsoever. 10:45
In the same item of business
The Convener
Lab
Our next petition is PE1593, by Paul Quigley on behalf of Fans Against Criminalisation, on a full review of the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threateni...
Paul Quigley (Fans Against Criminalisation)
Thank you for the introduction, convener, and thanks to everyone for having us here to discuss the petition and share our concerns about the 2012 act. I will...
The Convener
Lab
Thank you very much for introducing your petition. I will start by asking a question about the understanding of how the act has been implemented. FAC was set...
Paul Quigley
Yes. Even at the start, fans held protests about the legislation in stadiums across the country. For example, fans of Celtic, Rangers, Motherwell, Hearts and...
The Convener
Lab
We have talked about the reason why the act was introduced. However, recently—as recently as yesterday—MSPs have lodged motions that have tried to explain th...
Jeanette Findlay (Fans Against Criminalisation)
That proposal was put forward by John Mason MSP, who has repeatedly claimed that the act is primarily about defending Catholics and the Irish community again...
The Convener
Lab
In his opening comments, Paul Quigley mentioned the interpretation that has been put on the research that the Scottish Government did. When the Scottish Gove...
Paul Quigley
If you do not mind, I will pass that question to Jeanette Findlay, because I was not at the meeting with Paul Wheelhouse.
Jeanette Findlay
We had a meeting with Paul Wheelhouse before the ministerial statement was made—maybe a fortnight before it—and we made it clear that we were entirely oppose...
The Convener
Lab
You have done a lot of research on the pieces of legislation that have been enacted on the issue. There have been reviews of legislation. Have you analysed t...
Paul Quigley
I do not think that we have any specific examples of legislation that has been reviewed. Our understanding was that the review would be similar to the proces...
Jeanette Findlay
It is important to note that the authors of the single piece of evidence that the Government relied on issued two statements to say that, whatever they were ...
The Convener
Lab
I have one more point before I open up the discussion to committee members. Have you spoken to people who were interviewed by the University of Stirling abou...
Paul Quigley
We understand that the researchers did not think that the work would be the review of the act. As Jeanette Findlay said, the University of Stirling published...
Jeanette Findlay
The team did not interview FAC formally as part of the process until after the interim report had been produced. The report indicated that somebody from the ...
The Convener
Lab
For the record, I was also interviewed by Stirling university’s team. I was not told the purpose of the interview in advance and I discovered only later that...
Jackson Carlaw
Con
Surprisingly, only the federal Parliament in Switzerland has written into its articles a statutory obligation to conduct post-legislative scrutiny of the leg...
Jeanette Findlay
It is not possible from the Government figures to answer that question very directly, but I will do it as best I can. The 22 per cent rate is not a Governmen...
Paul Quigley
Jeanette has referred to the “other” category of cases, and those are likely to include instances involving swearing, as has been referred to. Quite a lot of...
Jeanette Findlay
It would be helpful for the committee to understand precisely what we mean by that. The two fans we are referring to are 18-year-olds who were chanting, “Wel...
Jackson Carlaw
Con
Thank you for that. That was comprehensive and very interesting. That suggests that there is a slight lack of clarity in all this. You are here representing...
Paul Quigley
There has been a complete change in the culture of the policing regarding how football fans are treated as they go to a football match. That means that someo...
Jeanette Findlay
In terms of direct experience, like Paul, I have not been charged under the 2012 act or indeed under any other act. As you can clearly see, I am a middle-age...
Kenny MacAskill (Edinburgh Eastern) (SNP)
SNP
Mr Quigley, do you accept that there are games, even in the Scottish premiership, where no police are present in the ground?
Paul Quigley
Yes, I would assume that that would be the case.
Kenny MacAskill
SNP
Would it not be the case that the majority of premiership games have a limited police presence, because clubs have to pay for the cost?
Paul Quigley
Obviously, some games will be deemed to be of lesser risk, so yes.
Kenny MacAskill
SNP
Do you accept that simply using the level of convictions might not be the criterion to use, because that would also have to apply to rape and sexual offences...
Paul Quigley
No, that would be entirely off topic. When you look at more of the evidence, it suggests that, as I said, cases under the act drag on much longer than other ...
Jeanette Findlay
If conviction rates are not the correct things to be looking at, you should direct that question to the Minister for Community Safety and Legal Affairs and h...