New courts as sex case numbers soar

Extension to cope with rise in re-investigations

TWO new high courts are to be created in Scotland’s largest city to cope with a likely surge in the number of sex crime prosecutions.

The extension, within the Glasgow High Court building, is expected to be completed next year.

It comes after Police Scotland was instructed by the Crown Office to review sex crime cases that had ended in acquittals with a view to seeking justice for victims through the new double jeopardy law.

The country’s senior prosecutor, Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland, QC, has championed the move, which is likely to increase the number of sex crime cases coming to court.

It was revealed at the weekend that a sex attack case allegedly involving Alexander Pacteau, the killer of nurse Karen Buckley, could be reviewed. In 2013 a jury cleared him by majority verdict of an attempted rape allegedly committed in December 2011.

Had he been jailed, it is unlikely he would have been free to murder Miss Buckley in April this year.

Last year, the double jeopardy law, introduced in 2011, allowed the Crown to prosecute serial sex killer Angus Sinclair for the 1977 World’s End murders. It came seven years after the case against him had been dismissed by trial judge Lord Clarke.

Two other notorious murder cases have resulted in applications to the Court of Appeal to set aside acquittals so that the suspects can be re-tried.

According to senior sources, Mr Mulholland, has instructed officers to look at cases in which new evidence might be available, possibly as a result of advances in science. He is known to be concerned about the very low conviction rate for rape in Scotland.

The Scottish Government’s most recent f i gures show only 41 per cent of rape and attempted rape cases prosecuted had resulted in convictions, compared with 83 per cent for homicide.

This resulted in 87 convictions for rape and attempted rape in 2013-14 out of 214 cases prosecuted. During the same year, 1,808 rapes and attempted rapes were reported, a 24 per cent increase on the previous year, and a figure that indicates only 12 per cent of all reported cases make it to court, with around 5 per cent ending in a conviction.

Sandy Brindley of Rape Crisis Scotland said: ‘We have had concerns for a long time that guilty men were walking free. Maybe some of the women they attacked will now see justice done.’

A spokesman for the Crown Office said: ‘The Crown works closely with Police Scotland in reviewing cases to ascertain if there are any new evidential developments which would assist in providing a basis for criminal proceedings.’

Kath Harper, of the Crown’s National Sexual Crimes Unit, said: ‘In recent years there has been an i ncrease in t he number of victims of rape willing to come forward and report to police.

‘The increased confidence of victims in the criminal justice process combined with the work of the specialist unit, means that we are able to get more sexual offences cases i nto court. We can assure victims these cases will be dealt with sensitively and investigated thoroughly.’

‘Guilty men walking free’