Why is Scotland’s Auditor General telling us good news about trial backlogs falling? It’s not like him or is it? Is it BBC Scotland re-ordering his stuff?

The backlog of trials in Scotland’s highest criminal courts has nearly tripled, due in part to an increase in complex cases involving serious organised crime and historic sex abuse. At the end of March about 1,000 trials were waiting to go ahead in the high court, almost three times the number before the Covid-19 pandemic.

In contrast, across the whole system, the number of outstanding scheduled trials has fallen to 13,268 – around a third of the backlog’s peak in 2022. Audit Scotland said progress was being made but the rise in high court cases was causing system-wide pressure. Successful prosecutions against gangsters and sex offenders are leading to longer sentences and a prison population which keeps hitting new all-time highs, despite the emergency early release of hundreds of convicted criminals.

How’s that for David Cowan picking out a plum, a soor one?

A massive reduction in the thousands waiting for justice but increases in the much smaller number waiting for more serious accusations?

Gangsters, eh? Might that include those County Lines gangsters from Liverpool, London and the West Midlands?

In 2019, Police Scotland identified 20 active lines in Scotland. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-50090140

By 2025, Highland Police reported 10 just in Inverness and police chiefs reported 6 500 across the UK with probably around 600 or more in Scotland. https://news.npcc.police.uk/releases/annual-county-lines-report-threat-remains-stable-but-business-model-used-by-perpetrators-continues-to-evolve

Why might that backlog of 1 000 serious cases contain a significant number based on County lines gangsters?

Those cases tend to be resource-heavy because they often involve:

• conspiracy charges,
• encrypted phone evidence,
• surveillance,
• multiple defendants,
• exploitation of children and vulnerable adults,
• linked violence and weapons offences,
• and cross-force investigations across several regions.

That means a single County Lines prosecution can consume far more court time than ordinary low-level drug cases. The rise of these networks almost certainly increased pressure on the Crown Courts.