The Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service quarterly statistical bulletin is published today providing quarterly Official Statistics on criminal case activity in Scotland.
The seventh statistical bulletin contains quarterly figures on activity in all High, Sheriff, Justice of the Peace and criminal appeal courts with national trends as well as detailed figures for local courts in solemn and summary criminal business.
The QCC Report 7 figures reveal:
- The volume of High Court indictments registered in recent quarters continues to be above 200 per quarter. Q3 2019/20 is almost identical to Q2 2019/20 with 274 and 272 indictments respectively. Evidence led trials during the same period continue to be high with over 100 in each of the last fourteen quarters. This volume trend is expected to continue due to increased reporting of sexual offending cases;
- 2,492 petitions were registered in Sheriff Courts in Q3 showing a similar volume to Q2 2019/20. This trend is also expected to remain high due to the increase in prosecution of sexual offences. The volume of evidence led trials in Q3 2019/20 is comparable to Q2 2019/20, with 292 evidence led trials taking place.
Commenting on the latest report David Fraser, Chief Operations Officer, said: “The QCC bulletin and interactive workbook provide open and transparent access to activity in the first instance criminal courts and includes comprehensive figures such as the national total of trials called; the total of trials where evidence was led; trials scheduled as well as trials adjourned due to lack of court time. Information on summary and solemn business is available for each court individually with access to useful graphs and tables. Criminal appeals data is also provided to complete the information available on criminal cases.
“This publication is intended to be of use to anyone with an interest in the flow of activity through Scotland’s courts and is expected to be of particular interest to legal practitioners and researchers.”
Ends
Notes:
- The Quarterly Criminal Court Statistics report is available at: http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/official-statistics
- The QCC bulletin does not cover court cases relating to civil business.
- Adjournments due to lack of court time are when cases are continued to another sitting day due to the sitting day having ended.
See the Scottish Government’s website for criminal statistics relating to people, offence types and sentencing as well as civil justice:
http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Crime-Justice