News In Focus
20 August 2008
Sheriff queries fines policy in minimal drug cases
The diversion from prosecution policy as it applies to drugs cases came under scrutiny in court yesterday as two cases of trivial value came before a sheriff.
Sheriff Lindsay Foulis at Perth Sheriff Court raised the issue when 19-year-old Michael McKernon appeared before him after being caught at the T in the Park festival with a tiny amount of ecstasy which the Crown admitted in court had no value.
When the sheriff remarked "Clearly we don't have fiscal fines for this kind of thing?", depute fiscal Lucy Keane declined to comment.
The Crown has refused to publish its guidelines on which cases are suitable for diversion, despite claims that serious assaults have on occasion been dealt with by fixed penalty.
McKernon, who said he had been really drunk and thought he was buying cocaine, was fined £50, the sheriff telling him that it should be a lesson about the state he had got himself into.
Sheriff Foulis said his thoughts were the same over a second case arising from the festival, in which Liam Barlow admitted possessing a tablet of ecstasy worth £3. He received the same fine. A £100 fine was imposed on Deborah Cormack who was caught with two tablets worth £7.