Review ordered of Crown handling of sex offence cases

The Lord Advocate has set in train a full review of how prosecutors deal with reports of sexual offences.

Appearing before Holyrood's Criminal Justice Committee, Dorothy Bain QC said she had commissioned Susanne Tanner QC, recently appointed Assistant Principal Crown Counsel, to conduct the review.

She told the committee that there had been "a clear and obvious upward trend in these cases" even before the pandemic hit, with numbers doubling in the two years up to March 2020. As of September 2021, there were 837 cases involving serious sexual offences awaiting trial in the High Court.

Ms Bain has previously called for a debate around doing away with juries in rape trials, claiming, to opposition from the legal profession, that judge-only trials do not impact on the right to a fair trial.

Yesterday she said: "The pandemic has had significant consequences for the justice system, with increased delays in cases calling for trial, and the uncertainty over whether trials will proceed in a given day causing anxiety and distress to victims and witnesses."

Separately, she has asked the Deputy Crown Agent, Lindsey Miller, to lead a review into the changing profile of prosecution case work and the backlog created by the pandemic, which have placed "huge pressures on the Crown's victim information staff".

The review would seek to ensure that this service "can continue to deliver the high levels of support and advice to all victims and witnesses that they do currently".