Sheriff's anger at early release


Jarvie will be sentenced at Airdrie Sheriff Court


A sheriff has criticised a "nameless official" over the early release of a youth who committed further crimes while on a home curfew order.
Sheriff Robert Dickson said Jason Jarvie 20 from Coatbridge had been free to re-offend because an official had ignored a judicial decision.
He was freed from a young offenders' institution less than a third of the way through a 15-month sentence.
Ministers said they were working to end automatic early release of prisoners.
At Airdrie Sheriff Court Sheriff Dickson said in such circumstances a sheriff could no longer give assurances over public safety.
Jarvie was ordered to be detained in March 2007 following a series of crimes including violence dishonesty public disorder failure to attend court drugs misuse and committing offences on bail.



The court heard that he pleaded guilty to causing malicious damage to a house in Airdrie North Lanarkshire on 1 October while on probation and subject to a home curfew order.
Sheriff Dickson who is president of the Sheriffs' Association said that given Jarvie's past pattern of behaviour it could "have come as little surprise to anybody" that he re-offended.
But he reserved his strongest criticism for the official who had taken the decision.
He said: "When you should have been incarcerated and innocent homeowners should have been protected from your mindless behaviour some nameless official has chosen to ignore a judicial decision to turn an apparent blind eye to your past record of ignoring curfews and to allow you the freedom to damage the property of somebody you did not know.
"There can be no doubt that had you remained in the young offenders' institution for the time selected by the sheriff this crime could not have been committed.
"I and every other sheriff can no longer give any assurance to the public that they are going to be protected for any particular period if our decisions can be overruled by a person who has neither heard the facts of the case nor had any input to the judicial decision to select a particular length of custody."
'On the case'
Ian Simpson a former sheriff said letting offenders out early under tagging orders to take the pressure off Scotland's overcrowded jails meant their time served bore "no relation" to the sentence imposed by the courts.
"That has to be bad for the public perception of justice" he told BBC Scotland adding: "I personally think the sentence of the court should reflect pretty well what happens."
Commenting on the Jarvie case he added: "When someone is sentenced to 15 months gets out after less than a third of it and is reoffending - at night when he should be tucked up in his bed - there's something far wrong.
"If that happens in 20% of cases that's 20% too many."
The Tories' Bill Aitken attacked the government's "soft touch" on justice


Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said the government's prisons commission headed by former Labour first minister Henry McLeish would report shortly on the issue of ending automatic early release.
He told BBC Scotland: "Some people do deserve to be released early because they've shown reform and remorse. Others frankly do not.
"What we have to make sure is we get it right."
Mr MacAskill added: "The sheriff is right to be concerned our communities are concerned we as a government are concerned. We are on the case."
Tory justice spokesman Bill Aitken described the case as "dramatic but depressingly unsurprising".
"When senior sheriffs are having to speak out you know for sure that we now live in the SNP's soft-touch Scotland" he said.
The Liberal Democrats' Hugh O'Donnell called on ministers to launch an urgent inquiry into the case. "This kind of decision hidden behind a cloak of bureaucracy undermines the good work carried out by police and judges in catching and sentencing offenders" he said. Sheriff Dickson deferred sentence on Jarvie until next month to allow a new probation report to be prepared.