The Crown Office has branded a Dundee sheriff “ill-informed and wrong” after he criticised prosecutors for bringing a case to trial which collapsed after just half an hour.
Sheriff Alastair Brown said the procurator fiscal’s office had erred in taking the matter to trial after the accused man had offered to plead guilty to a reduced charge.
The sheriff said at the conclusion: “I don’t know how the Crown ever hoped to seek a conviction at trial.”
He was speaking after the case against a care worker, who had spiked with mayonnaise the drink of a man with a severe learning disability. The trial collapsed and the man was cleared of ill-treating the client.
Dundee Sheriff Court heard that Mark Courage, 26, of Strathmartine Road, Dundee, pleaded not guilty to the charge of ill-treating or wilfully neglecting the man at Elmgrove Care Home.
He had offered to plead guilty if prosecutors dropped an allegation the act was “aggravated by prejudice relating to disability”.
But because of Crown Office rules prosecutors at Dundee Sheriff Court could not accept that plea, so the case went to trial.
After two witnesses gave evidence Sheriff Brown threw the case out due to lack of corroboration, allowing Courage to walk free.
Speaking about the rejection of the offered guilty plea, the sheriff asked the depute fiscal: “Is this a case of someone in Crown Office overruling a prosecutor who is actually in court and knows the case?”
“There’s no conceivable basis for suggesting what was done manifested prejudice and it is regrettable this case was ever brought.”
The Crown Office was asked to respond to his comments and a spokesperson said: “The sheriff’s comments at the conclusion of the case were ill-informed and wrong.
“The evidential position that existed prior to the trial was not known to the sheriff. It is for the Crown to decide whether criminal proceedings should be brought in any case and these were appropriately raised here.”
Courage’s solicitor Ian Houston told the court: “The defence position is that there are three elements to this charge putting a substance in the drink, a derogatory remark and frogmarching the patient to his room. He admits the first part, the second averment is essentially the truth a defence of veritas, essentially and the third was reasonable restraint.”