Question reference: S4W-30521
- Asked by: Roderick Campbell, MSP for North East Fife, Scottish National Party
- Date lodged: 9 March 2016
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Current status: Initiated by the Scottish Government. Answered by Michael Matheson on 9 March 2016
Question
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on its consideration of an application for legal aid towards the costs of a private prosecution from representatives of some of the families of victims of the Glasgow bin lorry tragedy.
Answer
Private prosecutions are, and should remain, exceptionally rare in Scotland. Responsibility for decisions on whether or not to prosecute alleged criminal offences in Scotland rests clearly with the Crown. The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service has a strong record in prosecuting crime.
The Bill for Criminal Letters, submitted to the High Court on behalf of some of the families of the bin lorry tragedy, raises issues that have not previously been tested in case law with reference to the very small number of previous private prosecutions in Scotland.
On that basis, and that basis alone, ministers propose to make a determination under section 4(2)(c) of the Legal Aid (Scotland) Act 1986 requiring the Scottish Legal Aid Board to make legal aid available to the representatives of the families for preparation and for the hearing before the High Court to consider the Bill for Criminal Letters. The hearing will allow the High Court to consider whether the Bill for Criminal letters raises exceptional circumstances that would justify a private prosecution proceeding.
The determination is not being made on the basis that ministers agree that the circumstances set out in the application for funding constitute exceptional circumstances, which is a matter for the court to consider. Nor is it made on the basis that ministers agree that there was any error in law in the decision by the Crown. The Lord Advocate has set out publicly the basis for the decision not to progress a prosecution following the bin lorry tragedy.
In line with human rights requirements and the need to be represented in a hearing considering a potential criminal prosecution, ministers will also make determinations in response to requests to make legal aid available to the representatives of the driver of the bin lorry, Harry Clarke, and also to William Payne, with reference to a potential private prosecution following the tragic deaths of Mhairi Convy and Laura Stewart.
Our first thoughts remain with the families of John Sweeney, Lorraine Sweeney, Erin McQuade, Stephenie Tait, Gillian Ewing and Jacqueline Morton, who died in the 2014 Glasgow bin lorry tragedy, and Mhairi Convy and Laura Stewart who died in a separate incident in Glasgow in December 2010.