Seòmar agus comataidhean

Lord Advocate, Mr Hogg and Ms Ross, thank you very much. I very much appreciate the time that you have given and the evidence that you have been able to share with us this morning. I suspend the meeting briefly.

Welcome back. I apologise for the slightly extended duration of the session with the previous panel.

We are delighted to be joined on our second panel by the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs, Angela Constance; Clare Collin, violence reduction team leader; and Tom McNamara, head of youth justice and children’s hearings. Good morning. Thank you very much for finding the time to be with us. I realise, cabinet secretary, that your time with us is limited so we will try to be concise.

Again, I will start by setting out some of the context for the evidence session. The committee has been undertaking considerable work on PE1947, on addressing youth violence, and has been struck by similar concerns that are raised in PE2064, on dealing with rape that is committed by under-16s. Both those petitions were lodged in 2022.

The committee—Mr Ewing will be rejoining us shortly and Mr Golden has had to leave us—has changed its membership during the consideration of the petitions. Indeed, I think that I am the only one left who visited the LoveMilton community centre as part of our evidence gathering for PE1947 and heard from some of the victims.

On PE1947, we took evidence from Police Scotland, the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit, the No Knives, Better Lives programme and a number of academics. We also undertook visits in the community to meet young people in an environment where they felt less intimidated, perhaps, than they might have done if they had come here to the Parliament to give evidence about their experience.

In particular, we met a young girl who, at the age of 14, was lured—the method used was a mobile—to a remote location, where she was seriously assaulted by another girl who had falsely sought to befriend her. The whole thing was recorded on mobiles and posted online. Nobody present was concerned for her welfare, but she was discovered in due course and taken to hospital with extreme injuries. The incident left her scared to leave the house. She feels very much that the perpetrator is out and about in the community, with the latter’s family even intimidating her family, leaving her as a victim completely unprotected and unsupported. Her mum says that she has got PTSD, and she has attempted to take her own life on two occasions. On the lasting impact on the young girl and her family, she said:

“I always thought that the police were there to protect and the justice system served justice.”

However, she just feels let down. It is very difficult to understand how you would feel in those circumstances as a parent or if you were the victim.

As I outlined to the first panel, the committee understands that the Scottish Government’s policy position is to avoid criminalising children where possible. However, we remain concerned about how the most serious of cases of violence and sexual offending are addressed and, crucially, how victims can meaningfully pursue justice and feel safe in their community.

I understand, cabinet secretary, that you might want to say a few words before we move to questions.

Our specific reason for having this additional committee meeting is to take evidence on youth crime, and we have two panels with whom we hope to be able to explore the issues. The session will be informed by our consideration of two separate petitions with which we have been actively engaged since 2022. The first petition is PE1947, on addressing Scotland’s culture of youth violence, and as part of our evidence taking for that petition, we have undertaken external visits and met various groups outside of Parliament. The second is PE2064, on ensuring that under-16s charged with rape are treated as adults in the criminal justice system.

I am delighted to say that our first panel is with us to assist with our consideration of the issues. We are joined by the Rt Hon Dorothy Bain KC, the Lord Advocate, whom it is our great pleasure to have back at the committee; Alistair Hogg, head of practice and policy, Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration; and Stephanie Ross, principal procurator fiscal depute in the policy unit, Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. A warm welcome to you all and thank you very much for making the time to join us this morning.

I will start by setting out some of the context, which I have already referred to. The committee undertook a considerable amount of work on the petition on addressing youth violence, but as we went along, we were struck by similar concerns that were being raised in parallel on the petition on rape committed by under-16s. On the youth violence petition, we took evidence from Police Scotland, the Violence Reduction Unit and No Knives, Better Lives as well as a number of academics and, most notably, we visited young people and their families who had been impacted by violence in their own communities.

One girl to whom we spoke was attacked when she was just 14. I do not think that any of us who were at that meeting will forget it; indeed, it is, I suppose, not normal for politicians necessarily to be confronted by that level of direct experience. Perhaps others will say that it is a story that they have heard before, but we were left profoundly moved. The girl was left at the age of 14 with post-traumatic stress disorder; she cannot leave the house without her mum; and she has attempted to end her life on two occasions.

In our evidence taking, we might well go into some of what we were told at the time, but I should make it clear that the young girl in question and her family felt let down that the justice system did not protect her and that things were just as bad after the attack. She did not feel that there were appropriate consequences for the perpetrator, who was still very much in the community and was able, along with their family, to cause her further harm.

The petitioner for PE2064, on rape committed by under-16s, has shared her view that there should be more consequences for the crime of rape committed by under-16s. She feels that the perpetrator will be free to continue attacking more people because, as she sees it, there is just no deterrence in place.

The committee understands that the system avoids criminalising children where possible. However, we remain concerned about how the most serious cases of violence and sexual offending are addressed and, crucially, how victims can meaningfully pursue justice and feel safe in their communities again. As a final comment, I would say that we were particularly struck by the organisation of some of the violence that we saw, with individuals being summoned for false reasons to destinations, only to find multiple people standing present and ready to film what was about to take place. Those victims were then abandoned without any regard whatever for their wellbeing or safety and left in an extremely difficult and dangerous condition. That was very difficult to hear.

I have been told that there has been no request by the witnesses to make any additional statements, so we will move straight to questions. I will come to the evidence that we heard from children later, but I will invite Maurice Golden to begin the questioning.

That appears to potentially contribute to the Scottish Government having the ability to intervene when online material is being used in a damaging way.

This will be your final contribution.

Thank you very much. That is all of our questions. Is there anything that you would like to add or have we covered the ground that you were hoping that we would cover this morning?

The earliest petition was submitted in 2022, but the evidence that we took subsequently was to illustrate the issues raised by the petitions rather than about the petitions themselves.

Very quickly—the cabinet secretary is waiting.

Thank you very much for that, cabinet secretary. Mr Foysol Choudhury will lead the questions, and I think that he will start with an issue that relates to the figures for 2023-2024 figures—although you have just given us updated figures for 2024-2025.

That would be helpful, as long as we keep it all very anonymised, because we are trying to talk in general terms without identifying anybody.