A senior executive at prisoner transport firm GEOAmey has apologised to a Tayside sheriff and blamed plummeting staff numbers for a series of disruptive late arrivals.
Director Gavin Redmond stood in the dock at Forfar Sheriff Court and said he was “embarrassed” by problems which had led to repeated failures.
He revealed the firm has been hit by the loss of more than a third of its workforce in the last year.
Mr Redmond told the court he had recently approved a 5% pay rise in an effort to prevent staff numbers from falling further.
Late shoplifter was final straw
Last month, Sheriff Robert More called a contempt of court hearing to establish whether the prisoner escort service had deliberately disobeyed or ignored court orders.
The final straw came when an accused shoplifter was more than four hours late for her own trial – twice in one week.
Sheriff More was told persistent late arrivals had also caused problems for Perth and other courts.
He said it appeared justice was “not being applied uniformly” across Scotland.
Breakdown in communications
At Thursday’s hearing, Mr Redmond offered his apologies on behalf of GEOAmey to Sheriff Jillian Martin-Brown.
“I’m embarrassed by the service that you have received – and the court has received – on that day,” he said, referring to the late shoplifter.
“This does not reach my expectations for our service.”
Mr Redmond said: “This related to a breakdown in our internal processes, specifically communications.
“We have learned our lessons and we have taken steps to ensure that those processes are more transparent, first and foremost, and they will be slightly more thorough going forward.”
Recruitment issues
Asked about ongoing recruitment issues, Mr Redmond told the sheriff: “We’ve lost something in the region of 35% of our operational officers in 2021.
“We have introduced a variety of incentives to retain our people, both financial and non-financial.
“Within the last 10 days, I have approved a 5% pay rise for our people, as an indication of the work they are doing and the lengths they are going to.”
Mr Redmond added he hopes to make operations at Forfar Sheriff Court more “self-sufficient”.
“We are working incredibly hard to mitigate these issues and get the service back to a satisfactory level.”
Sheriff Martin-Brown thanked Mr Redmond for attending.
“Please pass on our gratitude to the team here at Forfar,” she said.
“In light of the explanation, I will take no further action.”
The Anglo-American company secured an eight-year contract worth around £240 million with the Scottish Government in 2019.
Its services are monitored by the Scottish Prison Services.
