Hansard

I have three amendments in the group, which relate specifically to plea deals in solemn cases. At stage 2, I lodged some amendments in relation to summary cases, but having listened to the cabinet secretary’s warning about them potentially adding to court delays, I withdrew them. It is perhaps interesting to note that the ratio of summary to solemn proceedings in court is approximately six to one, so there are far more summary cases than there are solemn ones.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with plea deals. For years, they have been used very effectively by prosecutors in the conduct of their business. They can spare victims and witnesses from giving testimony. They can save the courts time and money, and they can incentivise early guilty pleas for the benefit of everyone involved. However, far too often, such deals are taken in secret, and some very concerning decisions have been made.

In one particular case, it took four years for a serial domestic abuser to be found guilty after he used every dirty trick in the book to evade justice. Having done so, he was still offered a favourable plea deal, which meant that some charges were dropped altogether, despite an abundance of evidence, and other charges were diluted to remove their worst elements. That is commonplace—it is happening in courts across Scotland, and it happens every single week.

Another case that springs to mind is that of Liz Shanks, who has campaigned on plea deal transparency ever since her own case of domestic violence went through the courts. She discovered only after the event that a deal had been struck. Again, the deal favoured the accused, who was able to see certain charges dropped despite an abundance of evidence—in this case, closed-circuit television evidence—against him.

In both those cases and in many others, the victims found out that there had been plea deals only because there happened to be journalists in court. As I said at the outset, such things happen every single day of the week.

After some discussion prior to the recess, I am grateful to the cabinet secretary for giving me amendment 38 as a hand-out. It proposes to give victims in solemn cases the right to opt in to receive information about plea deals. The Scottish Government says that that approach is trauma informed. The cabinet secretary has already used that term today, but I still do not understand what it actually means. I think that that approach could be improved. Given that victims are entitled to know the outcome of their case—whether it be a conviction or an acquittal—why on earth would sharing the details of a plea deal somehow cause further trauma? Surely victims are entitled to that basic level of transparency.

Amendment 38 almost gets there, but it perhaps risks giving an illusion of transparency and could actually make things worse for victims. I say that because, at a meeting to discuss the issue, the Lord Advocate told me that all victims are already told about deals, even though we know from the abundance of evidence in the public domain that that does not routinely happen. If that should happen but does not currently, how would amendment 38 change the position? The fundamental problem with amendment 38 relates to how a victim would know that they had the right to opt in. The short answer to that is that they just would not know.

We can look at some of the opt-in models that have been used in the justice system in recent years. For example, after the mass release of prisoners, only something like 2 or 3 per cent of people opted in to find out whether the person who had caused them harm had been set free prematurely. We know that opt-in models do not work, which is why we need amendment 63 or amendment 102.

Amendment 63 is my preferred option. It would mean that all victims in solemn cases would be told about plea deals. That amounts to basic transparency—it is simple common sense. Amendment 102 represents a bit of a halfway house between the Scottish Government’s opt-in model and my full disclosure model. It would mean that victims would have to opt out of being told about plea deals. I would still have reservations about any system that was reliant on Crown Office communication, given the strains that it is under, which is why amendment 63 is by far and away the best option. In all the decades that I have been working with victims during my time in journalism and in politics, I have yet to meet a victim who has said that they want less information about their case, which is what the Government’s hand-out option—amendment 38—would, in effect, amount to.

Scottish Women’s Aid supports amendment 102, and Victim Support Scotland supports all three of my amendments.

If members will indulge me, I will end with a quote from Liz Shanks, who has fought so hard for transparency. She said:

“They’re pretending to listen. They just want to be seen to be doing the right thing—but not doing what’s actually needed. Crime victims are not being listened to. They’re being let down every single day ... and they will be badly let down by this bill which could have done so much more.”

I find it hard to disagree with her, not least in respect of the plea deal amendments. Let us, please, show Liz and all the other victims out there that we are, in fact, listening by getting these critical amendments across the line.

I move amendment 38.