Current Petitions

Petition PE504, from Mr and Mrs James Watson, is on the subject of convicted murderers profiting from their crimes by selling accounts of them for publication. The Public Petitions Committee has dealt with the petition at various meetings. Members will remember that the petitioners made allegations about interviews held at Kerelaw secure unit with journalists about a convicted person's crimes. We agreed to seek responses from the Scottish Executive and the Home Office about the on-going disputes with the petitioners.Members can see from the Executive's response that it refutes the petitioners' claim that interviews took place with Barbara Glover for either Marie Claire magazine or the Evening Times. On the points raised about the provision of free copies of court transcripts to victims or their families, the response indicates that the Executive is reviewing whether it should incur the significant costs that would be involved in making such transcripts available to a wider group of people. The Executive also remains of the view that it would not make sense to take action in Scotland on the criminal memoirs issue until the Home Office has completed its work.We need to consider the Executive's view that a UK-wide approach to the issue is reasonable, particularly given the point that any restrictions that applied only in Scotland could easily be overcome by publication in England and Wales. The Home Office has let us know that it will consult on the issue in the near future. It is unlikely that a subject committee of the Scottish Parliament would be in a position to investigate the issue further in advance of the election. On that basis, members might wish to consider whether we should agree to defer further consideration of the petition until the outcome of the Home Office consultation is known—which will be on the other side of the election.

Those points are noted. The Executive suggests in its response that when the article was put together, there was an embargo on interviews with any of the youngsters held at the Kerelaw secure unit, so no interview for the article could have been done at that time. The information in the article might have been pulled together from earlier work that the journalist did before the subject became an issue for the authorities and the Scottish Executive. I suppose that she might have got hold of information earlier on and resurrected it for her article in the Evening Times. However, when the article was published, she had been refused an interview with Barbara Glover.

On the cost of the transcripts, I am not sure what you want us to do. The Executive says that the cost of £500 per transcript is a conservative estimate and is under review. If we continue the petition, as has been suggested, we will be able to return to the matter of the costs of transcripts.

It is suggested that we ask for clarification of the costs at the same time as we ask for an update on the Home Office review.

I am happy with the suggested action. If we are assured that the Home Office will take cognisance of the points raised in the petition, it is appropriate to defer the issue until we have the outcome of the consultation.

Okay. We will copy the petition to the Home Office.