Officers’ attendance at court ‘saps away’ capacity to tackle crime, says chief

The justice system must improve efficiency to ensure police officers are able to tackle more crimes, the Chief Constable of Police Scotland has said.

Appearing before Holyrood’s Criminal Justice Committee on Wednesday, Jo Farrell said as many as 500 officers are taken off the streets per day to appear at court – with some not even giving evidence that day.

The entire justice system, the chief constable said, must improve its efficiency.

Ms Farrell said in May this year only 15% – though she claimed this was a “conservative estimate” – of officers called to court would give evidence, while overtime cost the force £3 million.

Scottish courts have been struggling with a backlog of cases exacerbated by required changes as a result of the pandemic.

“Officer numbers are really important, but the capacity to investigate crime, to keep the people of Scotland safe, to support victims, is an issue of great focus for me and the whole executive,” she said.

“The demands by the criminal justice system is one of the largest elements that saps away the capacity of policing in Scotland.

“It takes away 500 officers per day to go to court, on many occasions not giving evidence – many, many occasions.”

The chief constable added: “In order to maximise the front line of policing, in order to deliver all of the things that we need to, we must collectively, as a system, as leaders in the system, make sure that the criminal justice system works more efficiently.”

Ms Farrell stressed “we cannot have victims coming to court over and over again and we cannot have police officers going to court and not giving evidence”.

Despite discussions about courts, the committee’s session revolved around the mental health of police officers, with a submission from Police Scotland revealing 20 officers and staff are believed to have died by suicide since the inception of the force in 2013.

Ms Farrell also said officers were seeing an increase in attacks by children and where weapons are involved.

“Our assessment of that is where we’re stepping into the operational space around supporting vulnerable people, often children, officers are doing the right thing,” she said.

“Often these kids are missing, and we’ll be returning them, and we’re finding we are seeing assaults in that space.”

She added: “What we’re also seeing is that we are seeing a rising in incidents where weapons are involved, where bladed articles are involved and where there’s violence.”

A spokesperson for the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service (SCTS) said: “The judiciary and SCTS have been at the heart of criminal justice reform in Scotland. These reforms have included the evidence of the police and professional witnesses being taken remotely, without the need for them to attend court.

“It has also included: the victims of sexual offences giving their evidence well in advance of and at a place which is remote from courtroom; the introduction of presumption in favour of pre-recorded evidence in advance of the trial for children and vulnerable adults to minimise trauma; the review of the management of sexual offences to improve the experience of complainers; and the introduction of the summary case management pilot.

“The summary case management pilot has reduced the number of cases that are set down for trial unnecessarily, the volume of late pleas of guilty and late decisions on discontinuation.

“This is achieved by early disclosure of evidence and early judicial case management. The interim evaluation of the pilot shows a 34% reduction in the first citation of police witnesses.

“The success of these initiatives relies upon strong co-operation across the system. Action by the Police and Crown to tackle delays in the disclosure of evidence and to improve the citation of witnesses is likely to have a significant impact on the unnecessary adjournments of trials and repeat citations of witnesses.”