Chamber and committees

Okay. You might not know this off the top of your head, but how many criminal defence lawyers are there in Scotland?

Thank you. That is helpful background information.

I will bring in Sharon Dowey and then Russell Findlay. I ask you to make your questions fairly succinct.

We have run out of time, so I must bring the session to a close. Thank you very much indeed for attending, Mr Brown.

Tomorrow morning, in what will be our final evidence session on the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform (Scotland) Bill, we will take evidence from the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs.

Yes.

Thank you very much, Lord Matthews. You have set out a very comprehensive and well-articulated position. I will bring in Sheriff Cubie on that same question.

Sheriff Cubie, would you like to come in on that?

That helpfully leads into a question that I was going to ask. Staying with the rape trial pilot, this concerns a point that has come up in evidence, which I was very interested in. During previous evidence, it was suggested that some of the concerns about the pilot without juries might be lessened if there were more than one judge involved in a ruling. I am interested in whether the judiciary has a view on that proposal, as a hypothetical. I will also bring in Sheriff Cubie on that.

That is understood.

I will close this part of the evidence session. Thank you both for your attendance, which has been hugely helpful to us.

I welcome our final panel today. They are Dr Andrew Tickell and Seonaid Stevenson-McCabe, who are both lecturers in law in Glasgow Caledonian University’s department of economics and law. We are very grateful that you have been able to join us. I intend to allow about 45 minutes for this session, in which we will primarily focus on the proposal to grant automatic lifelong anonymity to victims in sexual offences cases.

I will open with a broad question. Will you outline the work that you have done as part of the Glasgow Caledonian University project on complainer anonymity, and the main findings of that research?

Thank you. I will ask a couple of other questions later, but I now open the discussion to members.