The abolition of the not proven verdict should have happened decades ago.
This strange quirk of the Scottish legal system has cast a shadow on our courts for too long. SNP ministers finally confirmed yesterday that legislation will be tabled at Holyrood to reform the justice system.
Juries will be reduced from 15 to 12 members and they will be offered a straight choice of verdicts – guilty or not guilty. It will bring jury trials in Scotland in line with those in England and Wales.
But it comes too late for families such as that of Grace Handling, a schoolgirl who died after taking drugs at a party. Her relatives watched on in court as Callum Owens, 22, was acquitted on a not proven verdict in 2020.
Owens had denied the schoolgirl’s culpable homicide by recklessly supplying her with ecstasy. The fact remains the verdict should have been scrapped years before.
Many will recall the brutal murder of Amanda Duffy in Hamilton, in 1992, and the shock when her suspected killer walked free on a not proven verdict. A well-organised campaign by her parents should have been enough to ditch the verdict there and then.
Another positive move is the establishment of a Victims’ Commissioner – a move long championed by the Record and the family of Shaun Woodburn, who was killed in an unprovoked attack in 2016. Let’s hope the new position can help families navigate the legal system at a time they are at their most vulnerable.
Beware fascists
We should mock people like Kenny Smith, the far-right clown who thinks only white people are “truly Scottish”.
He formed a fascist group called Homeland, who held a meeting earlier this month on Hitler’s birthday. The position Smith and his organisation take on racial issues is absurd and deserves to be ridiculed.
But we know from history that fascist organisations also need to be taken seriously. Smith talks of standing up for the “indigenous people of these islands” but he is doing nothing of the sort.
Homeland will only try to create divisions in our society for their own twisted aims. One activist described them as “the most dangerous group on the British far right”.
Left unchecked, they have the potential to do great harm. We must call out people like Smith every time they crawl out from under a rock. His politics belongs in the dustbin of history.
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