Scotland’s Conservative shadow justice secretary believes there is “a problem at the heart of Scottish justice” over the sentences handed out to people convicted of child pornography crimes.
Liam Kerr was responding to claims offenders were being treated with undue leniency, after a number of offenders walked free from Dundee Sheriff Court despite being convicted of possessing indecent images of children — some in the most explicit category — in the space of a week.
Local children’s charity campaigners called for lawmakers to “throw away the key” for people convicted of child pornography offences who “fuel an industry of child abuse”.
Today, Mr Kerr said: “More and more of these vile cases are being treated as summary procedures instead of on indictment, which means a sheriff can only ever impose a 12-month custodial sentence.
“That’s up to the prosecutors and there is sometimes a good reason for matters not to proceed before a sheriff and jury.
“But there is a problem at the heart of Scottish justice which definitely is a decision for the Scottish Government and Justice Secretary Michael Matheson.
“A predisposition against sentences of less than 12 months means that many cases attract the maximum number of hours of community work and no jail time.
“There is no ‘lower level’ when it comes to the abuse of children.”
The Tele asked the Scottish Government how effective the sentencing is of people who access child abuse images in this country.
A Holyrood spokesman did not address that particular issue but he said evidence shows that the reconviction rate for those convicted of sex offences in Scotland is the lowest amongst people convicted of all different offences.
He added: “Scotland has robust legislation for dealing with those who commit sexual offences, with greater police powers in place for monitoring and a range of measures such as electronic tagging, curfews and restrictions on where offenders can go or who they can contact in the community.
“Individuals released from a custodial sentence of 12 months or less are reconvicted nearly twice as often as those who are given a community payback order (CPO).
“CPOs offer real opportunities for rehabilitation by requiring offenders to undertake work aimed at reducing the risk of reoffending, as opposed to short-term prison sentences where individuals serving custodial sentences of less than four years do not have routine access to rehabilitation programmes.”
Asked whether the Scottish Government would consider lifetime sex offender registration, the spokesman said: “As in England and Wales, sex offenders who have been sentenced to 30 months or more are subject to indefinite notification in Scotland and we have no plans to remove that.”
The Tele also approached retired Sheriff Richard Davidson who said he believed sentencing options for sheriffs were wide enough in scope and didn’t need revisited.
He said: “The big problem is that a lot of people convicted of these offences are of limited mental capacity — you need to have regard for that.
“Another big issue is that, in reality, you find that the perpetrator has been abused and you need to have some awareness of that.
“My main concern was always whether there was sufficient resource to make sure that people were adhering to the terms of their licence with regard to the police, and a lesser extent the criminal justice social work department.”
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