Hansard

Thank you very much, convener. Good morning, everyone.

A war memorial is a centre point of many a community’s life. People gather round it on remembrance Sunday to pay their respects to and remember those who gave their lives in conflict so that our communities may enjoy peace and freedom, and to pay tribute to those who have served in wars. To many individuals and groups, particularly serving armed forces personnel, veterans and bereaved families, war memorials carry special meaning and significance. To some bereaved relatives and friends of people who have lost their lives in war but whose bodies were never recovered or repatriated, a war memorial is symbolic of a grave site.

Many veterans and armed forces groups have taken on the role of custodians of war memorials. They clean the stone, place flower beds and ensure that the surrounding area is kept tidy. I pay tribute to all groups that are involved in maintaining the upkeep of our war memorials.

Any attack on a war memorial, however large or small, is egregious, cruel, offensive and retraumatising for those who have lost loved ones in conflict or who have served or are serving themselves. In some cases, the vandalism or desecration of a war memorial would be categorised as a heritage crime. In practice, the offence is most likely to be charged and prosecuted under the statutory offence of vandalism or the common-law crime of malicious mischief.

Those matters are generally prosecuted in the justice of the peace and sheriff courts, and there are limits to the sentences that can be handed down and the levels of the fines that can be issued. Although those sentencing options are appropriate for most instances of vandalism, they do not allow courts to consider higher penalties, which would deter acts of desecration of war memorials and provide adequate redress for the distress caused to individuals and communities as a result of such acts.

The costs to local authorities of repairing and cleaning a defaced or damaged war memorial amount to thousands of pounds. That is due to the specialised stonemasonry involved in treating the stone and the skills that are required to restore them.

The question that I have for all committee members is this: do they believe that vandalism of a war memorial should be treated in exactly the same way as vandalism of a lamp post or a telephone box? In short, I do not believe that the current criminal law adequately takes account of the impact of the desecration of a war memorial on the people and communities for whom the memorial has significant and symbolic meaning.

That is why I consider that there should be a specific statutory offence of desecration of a war memorial, with options for courts to hand down higher penalties than those that are available at present, thereby creating a stronger deterrent. Ultimately, the sanctions would be for the courts to decide. However, I want to give them a range of options and for the law to more appropriately reflect the seriousness of this particular crime.

As committee members might be aware, the United Kingdom Parliament has already legislated in this area through the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. That followed a private member’s bill from the then MP Jonathan Gullis that would have created an offence of desecrating a war memorial.

I will turn to the provisions of my bill. It is a short, three-section bill with one substantive section. Section 1 would insert a new section 52A into the Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 1995. Proposed new section 52A(1) would establish an offence of desecration of a war memorial. That would mean that any person who

“wilfully or recklessly destroys, damages or desecrates a war memorial”

is committing an offence unless they have a reasonable excuse. What constitutes a reasonable excuse will be determined by the courts on a case-by-case basis. However, an example might be someone who is working on a war memorial to clean or maintain it accidentally causing damage to it in the course of their work.

Proposed new section 52A(2) sets out what desecrating a war memorial means. It includes, but is not limited to,

“spitting, urinating or defecating upon, or otherwise defacing ... a war memorial”,

and it includes both temporary and permanent damage.

Proposed new section 52A(3) sets out the penalties for the new offence. A person, on summary conviction, could face up to 12 months in prison and/or a fine up to the statutory maximum—the maximum fine is £2,500 in a justice of the peace court and £10,000 in a sheriff court. On conviction on indictment, someone could face up to 10 years in prison and/or an unlimited fine.

Proposed new section 52A(4) provides definitions for the terms that are used in the bill. The definition of “war memorial” draws heavily on the definition of “memorial” in section 50 of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. Subsection (4) also makes it clear that

“‘land’ does not include land over which access rights are not exercisable under section 6 of the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003”.

My intention is to exclude war memorials in private homes and gardens from the scope of the new offence.

Committee members will be aware that I have written to the committee about that matter. After the bill’s introduction, I became aware of a potential unintended consequence of that provision—namely, that it might exclude war memorials in the grounds of places of worship, which would be private land. As I indicated in my letter, should the bill proceed to stage 2, I plan to lodge an amendment to ensure that war memorials in places of worship or their grounds would be protected by the bill’s provisions, as well as those in any other places that would appropriately fall within the bill’s provisions.

As the bill relates to war memorials rather than memorials more generally, proposed new section 52A(4) makes it clear that

“something has a commemorative purpose in respect of armed conflict if at least one of”

the memorial’s

“purposes is to commemorate one or more individuals or animals, or a particular description or category of individuals or animals, who died in armed conflict”.

Sections 2 and 3 of the bill set out provisions on the bill’s commencement and short title.

I hope that that gives a clear overview of the bill and its underpinning policy development, and that it has been helpful to committee members. I look forward to taking questions and to the committee’s stage 1 scrutiny of the bill more generally.