Chamber and committees

I want to ask a quick follow-up question. I am happy to go back to Inga Heyman and ACC Hawkins. We know that, if officers use the provisions in section 297, they can take someone to a place of safety, and they are often turned away for lots of different reasons that we know about. That can be for very legitimate reasons. Essentially, they are left holding the baby. I know that you are working on that and that there is progress across Scotland on pathways. Bearing in mind the challenges of remote and rural areas, what should we be thinking about as the optimum pathway in local areas?

Good morning to the panel. I hope that you can see me—I have a wee bit of a problem with the light in my room. I would like to pick up on the current legislative provision in Scotland. I will come to Inga Heyman first on that.

Dr Heyman, I very much welcomed your comprehensive submission. You picked up on the challenges with the current legislative provision in Scotland, and the legislative barriers that exist. At present, one of the barriers appears to be the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003. When officers come to assess an individual to decide whether they might wish to take them to a place of safety, the 2003 act allows them to take someone only from a “public place”, whereas we know that a lot of people are in their homes at the time.

Secondly, the wording of the 2003 act refers to a situation where a police officer

“suspects that a person ... has a mental disorder”.

We know that police officers are not trained to make such an assessment, and it would be inappropriate for us to expect them to be able to do so.

The main issue that officers currently face concerns situations in which individuals are in some distress. I am interested in what you feel that we, as a committee, should be thinking about with regard to making the legislative provision more appropriate, and more of a fit for the growing number of scenarios in which officers encounter someone who is in poor mental health. I will come to Inga Heyman first, and then bring in ACC John Hawkins.

That is really helpful.

I want to ask Bex Smith a quick follow-up question on the welfare of not just officers but staff who are involved in investigations in often complex and quite harrowing inquiries. Just before this round-table discussion, we discussed policing and mental health in our first round-table discussion of the day. What provision are you able to make, or what provision do you have in place, to ensure that the welfare of officers and staff who are involved in investigating cases of child sexual exploitation is monitored and supported?

No, I appreciate it. It really set the landscape out very well. ACC Hawkins, do you have anything to add?

You mentioned domestic abuse and the aggravation that applies in that type of crime, but, interestingly, you say in your report that the aggravation that you are proposing should not apply to rape, sexual offences, domestic abuse and so on. That might appear to some as being at odds with the spirit of what you are proposing. The rationale for your position is partly that those offences and crimes are already “imbued with misogyny” to a certain extent. Is there a possibility of some confusion in that respect? How do we articulate this particular position?

I will bring in Katy Clark.

I see that no one else has any comments. Presumably, we will come back next week to reconsider the matter.

Pauline McNeill has a follow-up question and then I will bring in Fulton MacGregor.

Thank you very much. Sadly, I have to bring the session to a close. I am sure that we could have asked many more questions and had a much longer discussion. I express my grateful thanks to Baroness Kennedy and Mr Brash for joining us. If committee members want to pick up on issues with Baroness Kennedy, we will do that in writing.

We will have a short suspension to allow our witnesses to leave.

Thank you.