§ Dr. GodmanTo ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will detail the time it took between reports of incidents involving breaches of health and safety laws in the offshore oil and gas industries and referrals made to the procurator fiscal in each of the past seven years; and if he will make a statement.
§ Lord James Douglas-Hamilton[holding Answer 24 March 1993]: Problems have been experienced in recovering data stored on computer and many records formerly held by the procurator fiscal's office at Aberdeen were destroyed by fire in April 1989. Information for each of the past seven years is therefore not fully available.
In such highly technical cases it can also be difficult to select a single point as marking the date of the start of the procurator fiscal's investigations, but in a survey of 10 cases the time taken between the receipt of cases by the procurator fiscal and the start of court proceedings varied as shown in the table. Much depended on the complexity of the technical evidence and on the scale of the specialised investigation required.
In addition there are two substantial investigations which have been in progress since 1990, and two dating from 1991, in which decisions on prosecution will shortly be taken.
After Receipt of Reports Proceedings Begun Number of Cases within 1 month 1 within 3 months but over 1 month 2 within 6 months but over 3 months 0 within 1 year but over 6 months 3 within 18 months but over I year 2 within 2 years but over 18 months 1 within 2½ years but over 2 years l