Current status: Answered by Jim Wallace on 13 July 1999
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it intends to introduce measures to reduce the amount of police time spent waiting to appear as witnesses in criminal trials.
The research report "From Citation to Witness Stand: A Study of Police Witness Duty at Court" published last September revealed that since 1991, through the introduction of mandatory intermediate diets and other measures, there has been a 40% reduction in the number of police officers having to be available for court on any given day. We will continue our efforts to improve the way in which witnesses, whether police officers or others, are dealt with by the criminal justice system.