Former Tory leader talks about his new role as justice spokesman

The justice brief is quite often the source of some of Scotland’s most controversial and high-profile news. Increasing prison populations, high rates of re-offending and a notorious culture of knife crime are just some of the components of the busy portfolio. It is something David McLetchie, former leader of the Conservatives at Holyrood and now justice spokesman for the party, is well aware.

“The justice brief has with it unique challenges and since I took on the role in November it has been a steep learning curve,” he said.

“What is different about this role is the constant demand there is from media. In fact since I started this role there has not been a day that has gone by that our press officer hasn’t come to me asking for comments on at least two cases that have been raised by journalists.

“There is a constant demand for comment because crime sells newspapers and is a major constituent concern.” Rising prison populations have been a consistent challenge for every administration at Holyrood – the number of inmates in Scotland recently reached a new high of more than 8200.

Barlinnie Prison in Glasgow was said to be around 50 per cent over capacity at the end of last year, and some inmates at Cornton Vale, the country’s sole female-only jail, had to be moved to another prison because it had gone well over capacity.

The SNP has long argued that short-term sentences perpetuate offending in many cases and last year passed legislation imposing a presumption against jail terms of three months or less.

But in what may seem a quintessential Tory take on justice, McLetchie does not subscribe to the belief there are too many people in jail.

“I dispute the proposition that our prisons are seriously overcrowded to begin with,” he said.

“They are certainly close to capacity but the idea they are seriously overcrowded is not true.

“I do subscribe to the view that if a judge thinks a convicted person is worthy of a sentence of imprisonment then they should be sent to prison and we should have prisons that reflect the criminality of the population.

“One of the things that is very interesting is we keep hearing from the Scottish Government that we have more police officers, which is true, we have prisons that are full and we have crime that is at a 30-year low.

“While they are very happy to attribute the 30-year low in crime to the increased number of police officers, they don’t seem to make any connection between the 30-year low in crime and the fact our jails are full. That is because it doesn’t suit their political purpose and they don’t seem to make what most people would think is a straightforward equation, which is if you have more repeat offenders in jail then they are not in the community committing multiple crimes.

“In that instance, prison has served one of its principle purposes, which is to protect the public and the communities these people live in.

“I don’t have any problem with that and I find it astonishing the government fails to make what to most people is a pretty bleeding obvious connection – if you’ve got more bad guys in jail you have fewer crimes outside. It doesn’t take a genius to work that one out.” McLetchie was first elected to the Parliament when it opened in 1999 and much has changed since then, notably the SNP’s unprecedented majority victory last May. He said: “Obviously now in the justice portfolio, as in any others, you no longer have the leverage of the parliamentary arithmetic to gain concessions from the government or in a sense propel the introduction of one’s own favoured policies. To that extent, the SNP are the masters in terms of what is enacted and what isn’t enacted.” One piece of legislation that has commanded much debate in recent months is the Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications (Scotland) Act.

The new law targets offensive and threatening behaviour likely to cause public disorder in and around football stadiums, and the communication of threats of serious harm or that are intended to stir up religious hatred on the internet or other communications.

But opposition members of the Parliament’s Justice Committee did not support the law.

McLetchie said: “There was divided party opinion. I think the SNP had backed itself into a corner and was guilty of simply trying to be seen to do something. At the end of the day, it passed a measure which is a dubious case in terms of necessity, not a dubious case in terms of the necessity to tackle the problem, but in terms of whether we need more laws.

“The Scottish Parliament, I’m afraid, over the last 12 years, has been overly fond of tokenistic legislation.

“One positive I would say about this bill, maybe, is it has made the football authorities finally wake up to their responsibilities in this regard.

“It still doesn’t, however, address the issue of whether the law we have passed is good and effective. I don’t think the legislation alone will make a great deal of difference.” McLetchie and his colleagues on the Justice Committee have had no shortage of reform to consider.

Lord Carloway published a list of recommendations in November after he was asked by Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill to review the criminal justice system following the UK Supreme Court’s decision to uphold an appeal by Peter Cadder. The London court ruled that a Scottish practice that allowed police to interview a suspect without offering them a lawyer was a breach of human rights.

Carloway recommended a number of changes to procedure to do with arrest and detention.

More controversially, he recommended the abolition of the principle of corroboration, which required at least two individual pieces of evidence. Critics of the rule have said it prohibits many cases of rape and sexual assault being prosecuted because there is often only one source of evidence.

McLetchie said: “In terms of reforming the rules and law relating to custody and detention it seemed to command wide acceptance across the legal profession and I think there is a good case for the government for proceeding relatively quickly with legislation in relation to these aspects of the Carloway report.

“Also what came out from the reaction to the report is people are not prepared to accept on a freestanding basis the recommendation about abolishing corroboration. I would be surprised if the Government presses ahead with that in the terms that were proposed.

“The initial reaction, skewed a bit by the statistical appendix to the Carloway report, was ‘this is tremendous, we’ll abolish this and we can then send more rapists to jail’.

“But once people examined things in more detail and looked at comparable jurisdictions where there isn’t a rule about corroboration, frankly the conviction rate was not much better, marginally better in England than in Scotland.” The government last month published a bill that could permit publication of information about the case against the only man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing. It has been said the Criminal Cases Bill would let the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission decide whether information it gathered and referred to the Appeal Court should be published.

Abdelbaset al-Megrahi abandoned his second appeal days before he was sent home to Libya on compassionate grounds.

Campaigners want case papers released, but that has so far been prohibited by law. For the documents to be released, the SCCRC needed the consent of the main parties involved, which include the Crown Office, the police and the Foreign Office.

McLetchie said: “I think it is interesting that the Scottish Government’s official position is that it doesn’t doubt the safety of Megrahi’s conviction. We have this obsession about Megrahi and although they say they don’t doubt the conviction, clearly they do as they are playing to that gallery.

“It would appear there are barriers in terms of the release of statements of reasons to do with data protection, which is reserved, and also issues over official secrets, so there are quite a lot of barriers over which the Scottish Parliament can do nothing.

“To my mind it is quite simply grandstanding, it is pandering to a view that Megrahi is innocent, it is pandering to all the conspiracy theorists and if they [the Government] really don’t doubt the safety of the conviction then what are they wasting our time for?

“I would be surprised if all of this ends up being released into the public domain at the end of the day and I think it’s time to draw a line under this but suspect it won’t be until Megrahi passes away.” It is not a view that will deter Megrahi campaigners. In recent years, there has been growing support for the idea that the Libyan may have been the victim of a miscarriage of justice. It is one of several issues that convince McLetchie his new job will be far from dull.

He added: “We are at a time when the police is about to go through major reform and there is some important legislation coming through the parliament. As we’ve seen in the last few years, the justice brief plays a significant role in terms of politics and policy and I expect that very much to continue throughout this parliament too.”