Scottish Government

In 2007/08, a total of 2,254 criminal appeals were concluded in the High Court of Justiciary. This represents an increase of 6 per cent compared with 2006/07, but is still 30 per cent lower than the equivalent figure 10 years ago.

Table 1 shows that the number of completed appeals against decisions of the Sheriff Summary first instance courts showed no change between 2006/07 and 2007/08, remaining at just under 1,200 appeals. There was an increase of 30 per cent (from 164 to 214) for the District and Stipendiary Magistrate courts and 22 per cent (from 499 to 611) for the Sheriff Solemn Courts

Over the same period, the number of completed appeals against decisions of the High Court decreased by 10 per cent (from 296 to 267).

Table 1 Criminal appeals, by type of court of first instance, 1997/98-2007/08

1. Includes appeals where type of court of first instance not known.
2. Includes Stipendiary Magistrates Court.

Table 2, below, shows there have been small increases from 2006/07 to 2007/08 in all types of appeal.

Solemn Conviction and Summary Conviction appeals account for a similar proportion of the total as seen in previous years. Solemn Sentence only appeals stand at 31%, the highest figure from 1997/98 onwards. Summary Sentence only appeals stand at 50% of total appeals, the lowest figure from 1997/98 onwards and continuing the annual downward trend.

Table 2 Criminal appeals, by type of appeal, 1997/98-2007/08

1. Includes appeals relating to acquittals.
2. Includes appeals against conviction and sentence.

From Chart 1 it can be seen that between 2006/07 and 2007/08, there was an increase of 14 per cent (from 132 to 151 days) in the overall average duration of completed criminal appeals.

Chart 1: Table of information
Criminal appeals, by type of appeal and average duration (days), 1997/98 - 2007/08

The average duration of completed summary conviction appeals increased from 2006/07 by 70 per cent (from 129 to 220 days). This figure was markedly higher than the previous two years but showed a large reduction from 2004/05. The duration of summary sentence appeals increased by 21 per cent (from 79 to 96 days).

The average duration of completed solemn conviction appeals increased by 3 per cent (from 372 to 382 days) whilst solemn sentence appeals decreased by 3 per cent (from 162 to 158 days).

For types of first instance courts, shown in Chart 2, the average duration of appeals from Sheriff summary courts was up 33 per cent (from 85 to 112 days), while for District and Stipendiary Magistrates courts it increased by 39 per cent (from 106 to 147 days).

An increase of 6 per cent (from 311 to 331 days) was recorded in the average duration of appeals from High Court first instance, while the average duration for Sheriff Solemn courts was up by 3 per cent (from 141 to 146 days).

Chart 2: Table of information
Criminal appeals, by type of court of first instance and average duration (days), 1997/98 - 2007/08

The majority (74 per cent) of appeals concluded in 2007/08 were completed within 6 months, a slight drop to the same proportion in 2006/07 (81 per cent). These figures corresponded with an increase from 13 per cent to 20 per cent for those completed which took between 6 months and one year. There was no change in the percentage completed in over one year.

Furthermore, 24 per cent of solemn conviction appeals concluded in 2007/08 took a year or more to complete. This was a decrease of 9 percentage points from 2006/07. At the same time 20per cent of summary conviction appeals concluded in 2007/08 took a year or more to complete, an increase of 15 percentage points from 2006/07.

The proportion of solemn sentence appeals taking a year or more to complete dropped from 8 per cent in 2006/07 to 5 per cent in 2007/08, whilst the corresponding proportion of summary sentence only appeals remained at 2 per cent.

NOTE: For the purposes of these statistics, the duration of an appeal case is measured from the date it was initially registered to the date it was determined. It should also be noted that the duration of a criminal appeal case will, in part, depend upon the time it takes for the Crown, and an appellant, to prepare their case. An appeal hearing date will not generally be allocated until both parties are ready to proceed.

Table 3 Criminal appeals against conviction and sentence, percentage by duration by type of appeal, 1997/98-2007/08

1. Includes appeals against conviction and sentence.

Chart 3, shows that of the 2,254 appeals concluded in 2007/08, 12 per cent related to conviction alone, 82 per cent to sentence alone and 5 per cent to both conviction and sentence.

Table 4 shows that the majority (67 per cent) of appeals involved persons who had been given a custodial sentence, while a further 21 per cent related to persons who had been fined.

The total of 2,254 completed appeals in 2007/08 was equivalent to around two per cent of the total number of persons convicted in criminal proceedings. From Table 4 it can be seen that as a proportion of all persons convicted, appeals were relatively more frequent in cases involving custodial sentences (8 per cent) than for fines or other types of sentence (1 per cent or less). This proportion also tended to increase with custodial sentence length: it was 5 per cent for sentences of up to 6 months compared to 60 per cent for cases involving sentences of 4 years and over.

Table 4 Criminal appeals, by main crime and disposal under appeal, 2007/08

- Nil * Less than 0.5
1. Includes disposal not known
2. Includes sentence length not known.
3. Includes type of offence not known.
4. Percentages based on the number of persons with a charge proved in 2006/07.

Chart 4 and Table 5 provides information on the outcomes of appeals. Of the total number of appeals completed in 2007/08, 61 per cent were refused at the sift stage or abandoned, while a further 15 per cent were dismissed. The remainder comprised appeals which were sustained, either in relation to an appeal against a conviction (3 per cent) or to an appeal against sentence (20 per cent). The overall proportion of appeals which were sustained remained similar to the previous year with the highest rate being for cases from the District and Stipendiary Magistrates Courts (34 per cent) and lowest for cases from the Sheriff Summary Courts (21 per cent).

Table 5 Criminal appeals, by outcome, 1997/98 - 2007/08

1. Includes a small number of other sustained appeals.
2. Includes appeals against conviction and sentence.
3. Includes appeals refused at sift stage.

NOTES

1. Any person convicted of a criminal offence in Scotland by a court of first instance may appeal to the High Court of Justiciary sitting as the court of criminal appeal, usually subject to the granting of leave to appeal. Convicted persons may appeal against their conviction; against sentence; or against both conviction and sentence.

2. Applications for leave to appeal are considered first by a judge of the High Court, who decides whether the papers produced disclose arguable grounds of appeal (a procedure generally known as the "first sift"). If leave to appeal is refused the convicted person may apply to the High Court for leave to appeal. This involves a reconsideration of the papers by, two (in sentence appeals) or three judges (conviction appeals), who must once again decide whether the papers disclose arguable grounds of appeal.

3. The Lord Advocate has a right to appeal against a sentence on grounds of undue leniency. The Lord Advocate may also refer a point of law which has arisen in relation to a solemn case for the opinion of the High Court (although this procedure does not affect any acquittal or conviction in the case concerned)..

4. The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission ( SCCRC) was established on 1 April 1999 to review and investigate cases of alleged miscarriage of justice in Scotland. Where the Commission believes, after proper investigation, that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred, and that it is in the interests of justice to do so, it may refer a case to the High Court for review. Once a case is referred, the High Court will determine the case as if it was a normal appeal.

5. The year in which an appeal is counted is the year in which it was concluded. This is not necessarily the same as the year in which the appeal was lodged, nor the year in which sentence was passed in the original court case. Incompetent appeals and certain types of procedural appeal, such as those which are for an extension of time on an existing appeal, are excluded from the figures.

6. Trends over recent years in the number and average duration of completed criminal appeals have been influenced by a number of factors. A judicial direction in September 2002 meant that priority was given to dealing with solemn conviction appeals. The amount of court time allocated with dealing with that class of appeal was therefore increased from 19 court weeks in 2001 to 26 in 2002. With the demands of trial and civil court business on judicial time, and efforts to conclude longstanding appeal cases, this resulted in delays and backlogs in dealing with other types of criminal appeals business. Additional resources in the form of temporary judges were, however, made available in January 2004 to help deal with the backlog of appeals.

7. The statistics published in this Statistics Release are derived from information provided by the High Court of Justiciary. They reflect the information as held at 15 August 2008. Any revisions to the data will be reported in future Statistics Releases.

8. The statistics for January 2003 onwards were derived from an electronic data extract from the High Court of Justiciary's appeals case management system. This method of data collection replaced the set of manually completed paper returns used to collect the data for previous years. While this new method of data collection is believed to be inherently more accurate than the previous one, the change to it may have resulted in a slight discontinuity between the figures for 2003-04 and those for earlier years.

9. This Statistics Release may be viewed on the Scottish Government Internet Web site: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/stats/bulletins/00691.

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