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That was helpful. Eamon Keane, do you have a view on that?

We might as well give your chapter a plug.

I have spent some time reading the 2014 academic expert group report—

Gill Imery spent two years producing the report on deaths in prison custody. There have been around 350 such deaths in the past decade, around half of which have been by suicide or drugs. There have been another 11 deaths since she gave evidence to us. Her report contains 26 recommendations and further advisory points but, two years later, only five of the recommendations have been implemented. Her main recommendation was on a new system to investigate deaths in custody but, crucially, she said that that would not even be necessary if the Crown Office fixed what she saw as failings in the fatal accident inquiry system. It is pretty clear from everything that we have heard that the Scottish Government and the justice agencies that are involved are not in agreement with her, but they do not seem willing to admit it. She told us that she feels frustrated but unsurprised. She told us that she feels “humoured” and “patronised”.

In response, we wrote to the relevant agencies—the Government, NHS Scotland and the Scottish Prison Service—and we now have their replies. If Gill Imery was despairing when she came here, I can only imagine how she will feel when she reads the letters. I ask myself whether those organisations actually listened to what she said to us—of course, they did, because she could not have been clearer. By ignoring her explicit concerns in their letters, they essentially confirm exactly what she said. It took another organisation—the Scottish Human Rights Commission, which saw her testimony and wrote to us unprompted—to address her concerns and sympathise with her.

It is notable that, despite the Crown Office being subject to severe criticism by Gill Imery in relation to FAIs, it did not choose to write to us to state its case. In response to a question that I put to her, she told me that she would be willing to extend her tenure on the deaths in custody review group. It is no surprise that the letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs does not even address that specific point. Again, that confirms what Gill Imery told the committee.

To summarise, we are all entitled to feel frustrated, humoured and patronised. It seems to have been a monumental waste of time, effort and money. What kind of message does all of that send to the families of those who have died in custody?

Yes. That is why I am surprised that the Crown Office, having heard that evidence, which was put in strong terms, has not engaged with us.

I will be brief as I know that we do not have a huge amount of time. We absolutely need to go back to Gill Imery in response to the letters. I made the point that the Crown Office chose not to engage with us despite the criticism of it. Despite all the thousands upon thousands of words, it boils down to the fact that she made one main recommendation and it has been ignored. We need the authorities to come clean on that. Are they intent on doing it, or are they not?

That is the main, fundamental point of the report, but she goes on to say that, as she sees it, if the fatal accident inquiry system was fixed, that would not be needed. That is central to everything.

Yes. I think that the trials were virtual in their entirety; that was the purpose of the pilot. However, from what we could establish, due to reluctance on the part of the accused and their lawyers, that often did not happen, which might have explained—call me cynical—why it took us so long to establish that the court had been used so infrequently. Therefore, for it then to pop up in a letter as evidence of good work and progress is questionable.

On page 15 of paper 2, there are statistics from Police Scotland about the number of domestic crimes that were reported to it. It would be helpful to know, of all those reported, how many were subsequently reported to the Crown Office and what happened next. Of those reported, how many were diverted from prosecution and how many were prosecuted and, of those prosecuted, what was the conviction rate? It is all very well saying that the act has been successful if you are judging that on the number of cases that have been reported but, if we do not know what happened consequently, we do not know whether that success is disappearing into a black hole. That would be useful data to acquire, if we can.

On page 18, a contribution from the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service seems to be making a virtue of the Aberdeen pilot for the domestic abuse court. From my memory of the evidence that the committee heard, it was quite difficult for us to acquire information and, when we eventually did, my memory is that only a dozen or so cases had ever gone ahead. Therefore, rather than the success that it is being presented as, it seems to have been underused, and the numbers were so low as to make it difficult to draw very much by way of a conclusion from the pilot.

You mentioned the single sheriff model for civil and criminal cases, which I have raised a few times. I found some of the reasons against that to be slightly questionable, if not spurious, although some of them were valid. Watch this space, because I think that that is being looked at.