An SNP MP has raised concerns over how long the probe into the death of Fife dad Sheku Bayoh is taking.
Mr Bayoh died aged 31 shortly after being detained by police in Kirkcaldy on May 3 last year.
Joanna Cherry, who was a senior lawyer before taking her seat in Westminster, told a fringe meeting at the SNP conference that the integrity of investigations into police custody deaths depends on them being completed “fully and speedily”.
She expressed her concerns at the delays in the Bayoh case in a fringe event hosted on Thursday by human rights group Justice.
“Deaths in police custody are very grave matters and ought to be investigated fully and speedily, and it is a matter of concern to me how long that investigation has taken,” she said.
An independent investigation was launched by the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner the day after the death.
It handed its report to the Crown Office in August for the Lord Advocate to make a decision on whether any criminal proceedings should follow. But the family is still waiting for answers.
A Crown Office spokesman said: “The Crown requires to undertake further work before a decision can be made as to whether or not there should be any criminal proceedings. That work is in hand.”
At the same fringe meeting, leading Scottish QC Derek Ogg revealed how he considered suicide as a Dunfermline teenager in the 1970s, when it was criminal to be gay in Scotland.
One of the world’s foremost LGBT campaigners, he described how, aged 17, he had “pills laid out in front of me” before realising he had to go about changing society’s views on homosexuality.