Adapted court system earns positive verdict
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An initiative in the judicial district responsible for Lanarkshire sheriff courts is helping to improve their safety and efficiency by limiting the numbers attending.
Hamilton, Airdrie and Lanark sheriff courts are all within the Sheriffdom of South Strathclyde, Dumfries and Galloway (SSDG).
The recently launched cross-justice initiative sees criminal justice and good behaviour reports provided securely by the local authority social work departments and the Crown, 48 hours in advance of cases calling. This enables certain hearings to be dealt with administratively by a sheriff, saving the prosecution, defence and accused from having to attend court unnecessarily.
Previously, in most cases, these reports were not available until the morning of a hearing. This meant that solicitors were often required to discuss the reports with their clients at, or outside, the court building. Now however, the earlier delivery allows these reports to be sent to solicitors, via a secure email address, enabling instructions from clients to be taken before arrival at court.
Advanced reports also enable deferred sentences to be dealt with more efficiently and conveniently. Where an offender has been of good behaviour or there is a positive report, the Sheriff can consider the matter in chambers in advance of the diet and admonish or fix a further diet/ review administratively without the need for the accused, prosecution or defence to attend.
If a report is not available and the Sheriff is satisfied of the reasons, again the hearing can be continued administratively.
Since the initiative started on January 20, more than 200 cases have been dealt with administratively.
SSDG Sheriff Principal Aisha Anwar said: “The courts are working hard to keep footfall within our buildings to a minimum to ensure the safety of all participants during the ongoing coronavirus restrictions.
“This initiative is another great example of collaboration across the justice sector agencies. The arrangements are working well to reduce the numbers attending court and to improve the efficiency of how our business is conducted.”
The type of reports covered by the initiative includes: Criminal Justice Social Work reports; Community Payback Order reviews; Drug Treatment Testing Order reviews; Structured Deferred Sentence reports and Good Behaviour reports.
A spokesman for South Lanarkshire Council and North Lanarkshire Council social work departments, said: “We have been working in partnership with our court colleagues on this project. Because they have been providing maximum notice of report requests, we have been able to produce court reports 48 hours earlier than would otherwise be the case.
“The temporary arrangement was agreed to support a reduction in court footfall and we have been glad to work together to do this as part of the wider response to Covid-19.”