Jail terms for women 'vary greatly', statistics show

Statistics released under Freedom of Information legislation have shown significant variations in the proportion of jail sentences handed down in sheriff courts across Scotland.

Courts such as Stirling, Kilmarnock and Dundee were jailing nearly 20% of women appearing before them, compared to 7% in Edinburgh and 5% in Airdrie.

The judiciary said it was not appropriate for an active sheriff to be interviewed for the programme, but retired sheriff Peter Gillam gave the view from the bench. He served as a sheriff from 1991 until 2013, and said the variations reflected the independence of the judiciary.

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He said: "Obviously there is now, as I understand it, a board set up for advising on sentence to the judiciary.

"But every judge is his own person or her own person, and they all have different ways of dealing with things, they all have different views and they are all independent.

"There has to be a certain degree of uniformity and that is undoubtedly enforced by the existence of an Appeal Court so anyone who does something which is particularly outrageous, as far as what is perceived to be the appropriate way of dealing with people, that can be corrected.

"But variety is the spice of life and I think that it would be wrong to try to dragoon the judiciary into dealing with things which they believe to be the correct way of dealing with things.

"They have local knowledge, they know the person, they have full information and they deal with it to the best of their ability and you have to trust that person to deal with it in that particular way."