Chamber and committees

I will just read it out. The paragraph continues:

“Given proposals elsewhere in the Bill to abolish not proven and reduce jury size, without parallel reform to the jury majority requirement, this would have seen the Government proposing the combination of variables identified as most proconviction in that research ... The policy choice [made by the Government in the Bill] was a difficult one.”

The next part of the paragraph is where, for me, the complexity lies. It says:

“Raising the majority required to, say, ten out of twelve would run the risk that other reforms targeted, at least in part, at the low conviction rate in sexual offence cases may be thwarted.”

The cabinet secretary, Angela Constance, has said that the reforms are not targeted specifically at the low conviction rate.

But the important point is that we have three verdicts and a simple majority, is it not? The reason for allowing a simple majority is that we currently have three verdicts.

I have a final quick question on corroboration, which Eamon Keane mentioned. There has been a bit of discussion about the retention of the requirement for corroboration. Would you have further concerns if we removed that requirement under the current proposals in the bill, which would mean having a qualified majority and two verdicts?

It is not. It is just that some witnesses, and people with an interest, have said that they have had discussions with the Government about their views on corroboration. There has also been recent commentary from the judiciary. Who knows where we will end up on that? I just point out that there has been talk.

Which is?

It says that it “may be thwarted.” The Government may have started off there, but it is clear to us now that that is not the Government’s intention. More importantly, you say in the article:

“But the proposal for eight out of twelve might be criticised for creating an unacceptable risk of wrongful conviction.”

That is what I want to ask you about. Do you have concerns about the jury numbers?

I am not disagreeing.

I am just trying to get my head around the point that you are uncomfortable with a simple majority, but you acknowledge that the reason for having a simple majority is that we have three verdicts.

Just finally, in England, is it 10 out of 12 jurors?

It is quite hard, reading through our papers, to get a sense of what we are addressing here. I am trying to focus my mind on the deaths in custody that I know about, where there has been a suicide or a death. It would be helpful to get a profile of what the causes of the 86 deaths were. Otherwise, I do not know whether we can make an assessment of whether the response is adequate.

I will be honest: in reading through the papers, I found so much management speak that it was driving me nuts. I was trying to get to what people were actually trying to say to the committee.

On a positive note, I would like to examine what Teresa Medhurst said in her letter a bit more, particularly about contact with families. The proposal on that is a critical step. The families of Katie Allan and William Brown were concerned about them. They knew that their family members were at risk and they phoned the prison, but they did not get answers. That was one of the issues, from my recollection. It would be worth following that up with Teresa Medhurst, asking how the proposed installation of phone lines is going to work and asking for her assessment of whether it will make a difference. I think that it could make a difference.

I agree with Russell Findlay in that Gill Imery is one of the best witnesses that we have ever had. She does not pull her punches at all. We have a horrendous record on deaths in custody. It is a problem for Scotland’s prisons in detaining people, and I imagine that things must now be even more difficult for the Prison Service, given the numbers. I feel quite concerned about that and the implications for the running of the service. That is a really important aspect of the work that the committee does.

In summary, I would like to see a profile of the 86 deaths with information about the causes, and further information about the installation of phone lines and family contact. I agree that Gill Imery should be able to continue her work until we are satisfied that we have made significant progress on preventing further deaths in Scottish prisons.

I have a point about FAIs. It goes back to the profile of the 86 deaths, and it applies only to a few cases. In the case of Allan Marshall, the family was distraught because they felt that there was a cover-up and they could not get any information about how he had died. We know that there was immunity from prosecution, and the Lord Advocate is taking that forward.

One of the recommendations was that families get unfettered access to prison to get information about how their loved ones died because, previously, they have not had that. They have had to wait for the FAI and, if the FAI takes years, the family gets no real answers or contact. I have asked the same question at every opportunity: will families get unfettered access? I do appreciate the situation—can you make that commitment and, at the same time, not compromise the case where there might be an allegation of criminality, such as in the case of Allan Marshall? Can you make such a commitment without that interfering with the Crown doing its job? I have never had an answer to that. On John Swinney’s point about establishing the approach to FAIs, I would say yes, if the system worked, but let us see whether we can make FAIs shorter.

However, there is this other scenario, such as in the case of the death of Allan Marshall. Families should get unfettered access to go and speak to prison governors and see where their family member died. Families should get all that. Why should they not? When the state has detained that person, why should the family be blocked from finding out as much as they would like to know about their loved one’s death? I have not had any answers to those questions but I feel strongly about that in such cases. I realise that those are a tiny percentage of the cases.