Thousands of alleged offences reported too late for prosecution

Thousands of alleged offences reported too late for prosecution

Thousands of alleged criminal offences have not been acted on because police have been too late in handing their reports to prosecutors.

Nearly 4,000 charges were reported to the Crown Office and Procurators Fiscal Service (COPFS) over the past six years that were outwith the six to 12-month statutory time limits, leaving prosecutors with no option but to scrap proceedings.

The numbers, obtained under a freedom of information request, indicate that the majority of the alleged crimes are low-level offences.

However, offences such as underage sex, electoral fraud, drug dealing, animal cruelty and firearms charges have also slipped past the criminal justice system because they became time barred.

Legal experts have called the delays “astonishing” and said Police Scotlandshould improve its reporting protocols.

Thomas Ross, president of the Scottish Criminal Bar Association(pictured), said: “It seems extraordinary that they would take so long to report. If it was an isolated incident then you could accept that mistakes happen, but we’re talking thousands of cases here.

“How would a victim feel if they were to ask about their case only to be told by the Crown ‘we can’t do anything because the police were too late in reporting it’? It’s astonishing.”

In total, 3,850 charges were reported to COPFS outwith the statutory time frames in 2008/9 and 2013/14.

In the single force’s first year, 2013, 763 were reported, the highest since 2008/9.

Late reports comprised 0.3 per cent of the 270,397 crimes reported that year.

Mr Ross said that the nature of the offences, including minor motoring offences as well as drink driving mean they ought to be “relatively straight forward involving quite a simple report”.

He said Police Scotland needs to make changes to its reporting system, adding: “In any bureaucratic process people are going to make mistakes, but these figures suggest there’s something much more serious going on.”

The figures show that six underage sex charges were reported to the Crown too late within the six year period as well as seven firearms offences, 10 animal welfare charges and 112 drug dealing charges.

Brian McConnachie QC told the Herald that for serious offences like drug dealing, the failure to report needs an explanation.

He also said the number of late drink driving case, 37, suggested “there may be a number of people out there driving who ought not to be”.

He said: “It is difficult to understand why such offences become time-barred.

“There is very little investigation involved and usually little more than two police officers’ evidence.”

Mr McConnachie added that the issue was concerning, and said: “It might be that many of these offences would never have been prosecuted or would have been diverted in some way, but the police failures meant that there was no choice.”

Deputy chief constable Rose Fitzpatrick said: “Police Scotland works hard to investigate and report to the procurator fiscal every instance of where a complaint of a criminal event may have taken place.

“In 2013/14, a total of 270,397 crimes were recorded yet only 763 charges were time-barred, which is less than 0.28 per cent.

“In a small number of cases, where we require assistance and information from a third party, despite our best efforts, this information is not received in time.”

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