The National (Scotland)

Scotland’s top officer ‘shocked’ by lack of focus on frontline policing Sheriff removed from office by First

- BY XANDER ELLIARDS

SCOTLAND’S top police officer said she has been “shocked” by the lack of focus on frontline policing since taking up her post seven months ago. Addressing the centenary conference of the Associatio­n of Scottish Police Superinten­dents (ASPS) in the Borders, Police Scotland Chief Constable Jo Farrell said the organisati­on was being “held under the water on a daily basis” by the scale of demand it faces.

She pointed to officers being taken off the front line to do work that should be done by police staff, and the demands of mental health incidents and court citations, which she said had a “significan­t impact” on policing by taking officers out of their communitie­s and seeing rest days cancelled.

She said that an officer attends a mental health-related incident every three or four minutes on average, which, she said, equates to between five and seven hundred full-time officers’ worth of time.

She went on: “We must focus intently on our core duties and what matters to the people we serve. We must evolve our service so that we can live within our means and are fit for the challenges coming down the line.

“Some of our evolution will be in our structures and working practices, but everything we do must be about prioritisi­ng the front line and tackling harm and high harm and the issues that most affect the communitie­s we serve.”

She added that since starting in post seven months ago, she had been “quite surprised and at times shocked at the lack of focus on frontline policing in this organisati­on”.

Her comments came after a speech from the ASPS president, Chief Superinten­dent Rob Hay, in which he called on police to steer clear of “toxic” culture wars.

Hay told the conference: “The divisive, political and toxic nature of some of the debate raging in wider society is not a place policing should ever inhabit.

“The flood of spurious complaints received upon the enactment of the new hate crime legislatio­n is the latest example of the mischief-making we have seen, undertaken with spiteful glee and diverting police resources from those in actual need.

“So, let us be pacifists in the culture war as we have no interest in arresting JK Rowling, no matter how much she tweets about it, nor are we interested in investigat­ing Humza Yousaf for describing some white people as being white.”

He said that while officers have an important role in policing genuine hate crime, they must not be drawn into the “petty point scoring” filling much of the debate.

The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act came into force on April 1.

A SCOTTISH sheriff is to be stripped of his position by First Minister John Swinney after being found unfit to hold the office.

It comes after a tribunal investigat­ed whether Sheriff Jack Brown was fit to hold his office after various allegation­s from multiple women about his conduct.

Among others, one said he had kissed her on the lips and “squeezed her buttocks” without consent in two incidents in an unnamed court. The tribunal found “no good reason to question” the woman’s evidence.

Colin Campbell, the chair of the tribunal who is known as

“Lord Malcolm”, concluded: “In our unanimous view, [Brown’s] misbehavio­ur renders him unfit for judicial office and we report accordingl­y.”

The First Minister has laid an order before the Scottish Parliament that will remove Brown from office on June 7, 2024.

Brown currently sits in the Sheriffdom of Grampian, Highland and Islands – one of six in Scotland.

Sheriffs in Scotland oversee and rule on cases before Sheriff Courts, which can be civil cases of value up to £100,000 or criminal cases for allegation­s which are not treason, murder, and rape. For less serious cases a sheriff may rule alone, while in more serious cases a jury also sits.

In order to become a sheriff, a person must be “an advocate or solicitor in Scotland for a continuous period of at least 10 years immediatel­y preceding the appointmen­t”, according to the Judiciary of Scotland.

First Minister Swinney said: “Given the nature and gravity of the tribunal’s findings, there are compelling reasons to remove Sheriff Brown.

“The tribunal has reported serious concerns as to his character and

 ?? ?? Janet Jones from Creative Stranraer on the newly installed sculpture
Janet Jones from Creative Stranraer on the newly installed sculpture
 ?? ?? Chief Constable Jo Farrell
Chief Constable Jo Farrell

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