HC Deb 14 April 1976 vol 909 cc1371-3
35. Mr. Russell Johnston

asked the Lord Advocate whether he is satisfied with the system employed in the Crown Office for the assessment of the weight of evidence before the service of an indictment in solemn procedure.

The Lord Advocate

Yes, Sir.

Mr. Johnston

Has the Lord Advocate had an opportunity to study the extraordinary case of John Joseph Boyle, a Scots Guardsman who was sentenced to nine years and subsequently had his sentence quashed? Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman think that the procedures leading to that case justify any review? Does he not agree that the law exists also to protect the individual against himself as well as to protect the public at large?

The Lord Advocate

This case does not call for a review of the arrangements. Perhaps it would be helpful to the hon. Gentleman if I dealt briefly with the specific difficulty in this case.

As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, normally serious cases dealt with by indictment are prepared by way of precognition by the procurator fiscal. However, if the person who is accused of serious crime wishes the matter to be disposed of rapidly, it has been open to him for many years to proceed by what used to be called a Section 31 letter and is now called a Section 102 letter, and this enables the matter to be disposed of with considerable speed. In cases of that kind, the case against the accused is not fully precognised because there is not time for that. Indeed, that is the virtue of the procedure. One can go straight to a plea and the case can be disposed of by a plea of guilty, following which sentence will be imposed.

However, in cases of this kind where there is a Section 102 letter, the Crown Office has to proceed on a statement of the facts which falls short of a full precognition. Usually that will be either a series of statements by police officers or a summary of the case by the police. In Boyle's case it was a summary of the facts by the police.

It was unfortunate that in that case the doubts that the inquiring officer, Detective Inspector Macmillan, had of the case did not appear in the summary, and the summary appeared to disclose circumstances which made it clear that there was not only a prima facie case but that there appeared sufficient evidence to justify the plea being accepted. When the doubts of this officer ultimately came to the attention of the procurator fiscal and the Crown Office, it was then that it was possible to set in motion the procedure which ultimately led to this matter being disposed of by the accused pleading guilty in another Section 102 letter to the true crime, namely, attempting to pervert the course of justice.

I am sorry to be long with this answer, but it is important to deal with it properly and fully. The law of Scotland can be proud that we do not proceed to trial or pleas of guilty without ensuring that there is not merely a confession of guilt but that there is independent corroborative evidence of that guilt. Were it not for that procedure, this matter might have taken a very different course.