Terms of Reference – Inspection of COPFS practice in relation to sections 274 and 275 of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995

1. Section 36 of the 1985 Act inserted provisions regulating the use of sexual history evidence into the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1975.

2. Sexual Offences (Procedure and Evidence) (Scotland) Act 2002.

3. The following paragraphs briefly summarise the legislation for the purposes of this Terms of Reference. The full text can be found at www.legislation.gov.uk.

4. Sexual Offences (Procedure and Evidence) (Scotland) Bill: Policy Memorandum (2001).

5. Including RN v HMA [2020] HCJAC 3; CH v HMA [2020] HCJAC 43; Macdonald v HMA [2020] HCJAC 21; RR v HMA [2021] HCJAC 21.

6. Macdonald v HMA [2020] HCJAC 21 at para 47.

7. CH v HMA [2020] HCJAC 43 at para 6.

8. CH v HMA [2020] HCJAC 43 at para 109.

9. Kerseboom v HMA [2016] HCJAC 51 at paras 10 and 16; LL v HMA [2018] HCJAC 35 at paras 9 and 22.

10. Macdonald v HMA [2020] HCJAC 21 at para 34; LL v HMA [2018] HCJAC 35 at para 11; W(J) v HMA [2021] HCJAC 41 at para 17; CH v HMA [2020] HCJAC 43 at para 27. In Macdonald, the Lord Justice General highlighted the importance of the Crown opposing defence applications which seek to admit evidence that is inadmissible at common law or under section 274 as, 'Without such opposition… the court may find it difficult to exclude the proposed evidence… when it is relatively ignorant, at the stage of determining the application, of the totality of the evidence which is to be adduced by the Crown at the subsequent trial.' (para 34).

11. HMA v JG [2019] HCJ 71 at paras 35 and 43; RN v HMA [2020] HCJAC 3 at paras 6, 7, 8 and 26; W(J) v HMA [2021] HCJAC 41 at para 28; HMA v Selfridge 2021 SLT 976 at paras 40-41; CH v HMA [2020] HCJAC 43 at paras 42-44.

12. RN v HMA [2020] HCJAC 3 at para 20; Macdonald v HMA [2020] HCJAC 21 at para 36.

13. Macdonald v HMA [2020] HCJAC 21 at para 47; Dreghorn v HMA [2015] HCJAC 69 at para 39.

14. W(J) v HMA [2021] HCJAC 41 at para 26.

15. RR v HMA [2021] HCJAC21.

16. Section 1(3)(a) and (d) of the Victims and Witnesses (Scotland) Act 2014 require that the complainer be able to obtain information about what is happening in proceedings and, in so far as is appropriate, be able to participate effectively in them.

17. Professor Sharon Cowan, The use of sexual history and bad character evidence in Scottish sexual offence trials (EHRC, August 2020).

18. IPS, Thematic review of the investigation and prosecution of sexual crime (2017) and IPS, Follow-up review of the investigation and prosecution of sexual crime (2020).

19. Lord Justice Clerk, Improving the management of sexual offence cases (March 2021), paragraph 1.2.

20. IPS, Thematic review of the investigation and prosecution of sexual crime (2017).

21. IPS, Follow-up review of the investigation and prosecution of sexual crime (2020).