Ancient double jeopardy law to be scrapped
The father of World’s End murder victim Helen Scott has welcomed the Scottish Government’s pledge to abolish the double jeopardy law and said he hopes his daughter will get “justice at last”.
Scottish Government sources have made it clear they intend to bring forward a bill in late September to scrap the law preventing a person standing trial twice for the same crime.
The bill to be brought forward by Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill will go much further than the limited changes in the law recommended following a review by the Scottish Law Commission (SLC).
The Scotsman understands that Mr MacAskill, who has cross-party support for the changes, intends to make the bill retrospective allowing cases from the past to be retried, a move which had been opposed by the commission.
The bill will mirror the Criminal Justice Act 2003 which ended the 800-year rule of double jeopardy barring retrials in England and Wales when new evidence came to light.
The change south of the Border was retrospective and has already been used successfully to bring rapists and murderers to justice in England.
Following a review last year, the SLC recommended the 800-year-old principle of “double jeopardy” should be set out in law and clarified.
The Commission made no recommendation on whether this should allow for retrial if new evidence emerged, but it said any change in legislation should not be retrospective.
The proposals were put out to public consultation in March this year.
But now the Scottish Government has indicated it is willing to go further than the SLC recommendations and apply the changes retrospectively, allowing those already cleared to be put on trial again. The move by the Scottish Government has brought new hope to Morain Scott, who is now in his 80s and has been waiting for 33 years for a conviction of the man who brutally raped and murdered his daughter and her friend Christine Eadie, both 17, after a night out in Edinburgh in 1977.
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