Eleven new sheriffs take up appointments this month

Eleven new sheriffs have been named to serve in five of Scotland’s six sheriffdoms. 

Nine candidates with a solicitor background, and two members of the Faculty of Advocates, have been appointed by the Queen, on the recommendation of the First Minister following a report by the Judicial Appointments Board for Scotland. 

Three are in Glasgow & Strathkelvin: Shona Gilroy, a career prosecutor with posts including head of homicide and head of appeals, and since 2017 a summary sheriff; Michael Hanlon, who has worked as a procurator fiscal, with the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission, as Judicial Secretary to Lord President Hamilton, as director of legal and policy at the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, and since 2016 as a summary sheriff; and David Taylor, a civil solicitor advocate with BLM and member of the Law Society of Scotland’s Civil Justice Committee.

David Harvie has been appointed to the Sheriffdom of Grampian, Highland & Islands based in Inverness. After working as a solicitor in private practice, he joined the Crown Office & Procurator Fiscal Service, becoming a solicitor advocate in 2014 and Crown Agent, the head of COPFS, in 2016. 

Greenock Sheriff Court in North Strathclyde sees the appointment of James Varney, a partner at HBM Sayers and then DAC Beachcroft, who has specialised in regulatory and road traffic crime, as well as defending high value personal injury actions, and who has been a tutor at Glasgow University in civil litigation since 2015.

In South Strathclyde, Dumfries & Galloway, John Hamilton QC will be based at Hamilton Sheriff Court. A criminal practitioner and former advocate depute, director of training and education for the Faculty of Advocates from 2009-12, he has sat as a legal chair on the Mental Health Tribunal for Scotland from 2008, on the Parole Board for Scotland and the Social Entitlement Chamber from 2014, and as a summary sheriff since 2017.

Also in that sheriffdom, Paul Haran, solicitor advocate, former head of office and then director of the Public Defence Solicitors Office, and latterly director of client legal services at the Scottish Legal Aid Board, becomes a sheriff in Airdrie Sheriff Court, as does Derek Livingston, a summary sheriff at Falkirk since 2016, before which he was a partner at Naftalin Duncan & Co and from 2007 a part time sheriff.

There are three appointments also in the Sheriffdom of Tayside, Central & Fife: to Forfar, Krista Johnston, a senior solicitor advocate with Martin, Johnston & Socha, a part time sheriff since January 2022 and more recently an ad hoc advocate depute; to Stirling, Charles Lugton, admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in 2012 after five years as a solicitor, who developed a principally civil practice prior to becoming a summary sheriff in 2019; and to Perth, John MacRitchie, a solicitor in Peterhead and Fraserburgh until 2012 when he was appointed Acting Chief Justice and Chief Magistrate, among other positions, for the UK overseas territory of St Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, and who was then appointed a summary sheriff of Lothian & Borders in 2017.

All the appointments take effect from 26 September 2022.