We were delighted to read this morning of the pasting Lord Carloway, alias Colin John MacLean Sutherland, got when he appeared before Holyrood's Justice Committee yesterday. We even went online to check the confrontation for ourselves.
The subject matter was his recommendation in the review that bears his name a year or two back that corroboration, a cardinal principle of Scottish Criminal Law, be abolished. He was clearly unprepared for the confrontation, stuttering and stammering throughout and obviously thought that the committee was not deferential enough. As one committee member said, he was 'surprisingly dismissive and almost disdainful' of being questioned.
While that was bad enough, Lord Carloway's attitude exposed an even more serious flaw in his approach. Talking of some 458 non-prosecuted cases that his review had, apparently, examined and found provable, he told the committee that 'cases, serious cases, are not being prosecuted, whereas in other countries they would be and the people involved would be found guilty' (our highlighting). Such an attitude from any judge is bad but, coming from the country's second most senior judge, it is almost beyond belief.
While that was bad enough, Lord Carloway's attitude exposed an even more serious flaw in his approach. Talking of some 458 non-prosecuted cases that his review had, apparently, examined and found provable, he told the committee that 'cases, serious cases, are not being prosecuted, whereas in other countries they would be and the people involved would be found guilty' (our highlighting). Such an attitude from any judge is bad but, coming from the country's second most senior judge, it is almost beyond belief.
We here have always thought that Lord Carloway inhabits a parallel universe. We now have the proof, corroboration and all.
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