BANGED UP (2)

In defence of sheriffs

David F Clark

As I think he may well know, I have a high regard for our Kenneth and usually not only concur with, but actually enjoy, much of his writing. However, I do think he is perhaps a bit sweeping in his disparagement of honorary sheriffs in Scotland. Since 1979 I have sat on the bench about every 10 to 15 days until recently and in that time have sentenced no more than a handful of people to jail terms. No doubt there are statistics to establish this rotting somewhere in a cupboard in Crown Office, but I would put it at no more than a fraction of 1% of all the accused I have sentenced. Most of my honorary colleagues who take the bench here in Banff would, I think, have a similar record. In any case, 'the honoraries' tend to be involved in the simpler cases and can be 'easy meat' for accomplished advocates making pleas in mitigation. Alistair Carmichael, now an MP, will no doubt remember that he was once told by me that if he produced any more pleas like the one I had heard in court that morning I would need a supply of paper handkerchiefs to stem my tears!
     Kenneth is also concerned that we know too little of the background and circumstances which surround and constrict the lives of the people who come before us. Perhaps I could quote from a long paper on aspects of the justice system in an attempt to diminish his anxiety. Diminishing people's anxiety has been my stock in trade for too long for me to lose the habit.

'So, on the basis of what qualifications do I write what follows? From a fairly adventurous and interesting life I suppose – that nearly 40 years as a clinical psychologist in the NHS and elsewhere has put me in direct face to face (and sometimes face to fist) contact with a variety of murderers, thieves, assaulters, monks, ministers of state and of religion, drug addicts, alcoholics, prisoners, victims, cheats, psychopaths, psychiatrists, schizophrenics, neurotics, social workers, depressives, lawyers, policemen and innocents.
     My working life has seen me acting as a psychological adviser at Peterhead Prison riots and carrying out a variety of functions in other penal establishments including Aberdeen, Perth, Leicester, and Inverness prisons as well as at Broadmoor, Rampton and Carstairs secure institutions. It has also allowed me to act as expert witness in courts on both sides of the border (though mostly in Scotland) on dozens of occasions. Since 1979 I have had the privilege of sitting on the bench in Banff as an honorary sheriff in the sheriffdom of Grampian, Highlands and Islands, and I have been a member of a children's panel for 15 years and a safeguarder for a further 15. More importantly, I have been a parent in a one-marriage family for over 50 years and still enjoy watching and participating in the development of my family and grandchildren. Both my daughters took degrees in psychology just to make sure that I wasn't conning them, in my child-rearing practices or otherwise.'

Of these experiences, especially as a safeguarder, many of the most instructive, touching, frightening and heart-warming derived from my work visiting deprived and abused children and adults in what were sometimes loosely described as their own homes. These were not 10 minutes in and away again. They often became several experiences rather than visits lasting up to four or five hours each in each case. When I worked in prisons, there were naturally other aspects of deprivation, threat, aggression and powerlessness revealed to me with varying degrees of drama.
     For these and many other reasons I wrote a paper advocating a completely transformed method of dealing with people who required, at least in the first instance, custodial care. The content of that is too substantial to embark on here. All I wanted to do was to temper Kenneth's fulminations about the 'hon. sheriffs'. As they say up here in the sticks, 'They're nae a' sae green as they're cabbage lookin'.