Tributes to Sheriff who blazed trail

Tributes have been paid to a retired Airdrie sheriff whose landmark decision paved the way for Scotland’s smacking ban.

Sheriff Dan Russell, who has died aged 81, provoked a national debate in 1999 when he found a primary school teacher guilty of assaulting his eight-year-old daughter.

The girl was smacked by her father in a dentist waiting room after she refused to have a tooth taken out.

The man, then aged 48, denied assault, but Sheriff Russell ruled that he had gone beyond the reasonable punishment allowed by the law and caused his daughter“unnecessary suffering”.

A trial at Hamilton Sheriff Court heard that the father was seen pulling down the girl’s pants and smacking her bare bottom several times.

After the guilty verdict, Sheriff Russell admonished him, but the case led to the Scottish Executive launching a public consultation on smacking the following year.

Pressure to change the law followed, but parents and carers remained free to use reasonable force to discipline children.

However, last year a bill to ban smacking was brought before the Scottish Parliament by Greens MSP John

Finnie, a former police officer.

It was passed by 84 votes to 29 and became law last month.

Sheriff Russell was appointed to the bench in 1992 after spending much of his career as a criminal law practitioner in his home town.

Lanarkshire solicitor Vincent Mcgovern, who began his career in Airdrie, said:“at that time Dan was the senior partner of Airdrie firm Bell Russell.

“He could not have been more helpful to a young colleague.

“He was kind, good humoured and, at my stage, extremely helpful.

“His popularity was exceeded only by the respect in which he was held by the bench, his colleagues, both Crown and defence, and the large clientele whom he’d assisted over the years.

“Dan was a terrific judge; clever, shrewd and legally expert.”

He added: “All of these talents he delivered with a tremendous compassion and humanity towards those who appeared before him.

“He treated everyone exactly the same way and was a real credit to justice in Scotland.”

Sheriff Russell is survived by his wife Janet and three daughters.