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A Scottish Executive National Statistics Publication
30 November 2005
ISBN 0 7559 2851 2 (Web only publication)
ISSN 0264 1178

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A total of just over 3,150 criminal appeals were concluded in the High Court of Justiciary in 2004/05, an increase of 18 per cent compared with 2003/04, figures released today show. Between 2003/04 and 2004/05, the number of completed appeals where the court of first instance was the High Court fell by 7 per cent to 427. The number of completed appeals increased for all other types of court: Sheriff Solemn (up 25 per cent to 599), Sheriff Summary (up 19 per cent to 1,839) and District and Stipendiary Magistrates (up 52 per cent to 287).

Trends over recent years in the number and average duration of completed criminal appeals need to be considered in the context of a number of factors. Following a judicial direction in September 2002, priority was given to dealing with solemn conviction appeals - the amount of court time allocated with dealing with that class of appeal was increased from 19 court weeks in 2001 to 26 in 2002. As there was one appeal Court per week for criminal matters, the knock-on effect was a reduced capacity - by the equivalent of around 630 sentence appeals. Taken together 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 made available in January 2004 to help deal with the backlog of appeals.

Table 1: Criminal appeals, by type of court of first instance, 1995/96-2004/05

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

Table 2: Criminal appeals, by type of appeal, 1995/96-2004/05

1. Incorporates revised data.
2. Includes appeals relating to acquittals.
3. Includes appeals against conviction and sentence.

Between 2003/04 and 2004/05, the overall average duration of completed appeals increased by 21 per cent to 187 days. Increases were recorded for all classes of completed appeal: the average duration of solemn and summary conviction appeals increased by 44 per cent (to 368 days) and 5 per cent (to 324 days) respectively; and the average duration of solemn and summary sentence appeals increased by 15 per cent (to 173 days) and 25 per cent (to 138 days) respectively. Similarly, increases were recorded in the average duration of appeals from all types of courts of first instance: High Court (up 37% to 267 days), Sheriff Solemn (up 20 per cent to 178 days), Sheriff Summary (up 18 per cent to 168 days) and District and Stipendiary Magistrates (up 13 per cent to 209 days).

The majority (63 per cent) of appeals concluded in 2004/05 were still completed within 6 months; however, this was lower than the corresponding proportion in 2003/04 (70 per cent). Forty four per cent of solemn conviction appeals and 36 per cent of summary conviction appeals concluded in 2004/05 took a year or more to complete (up from the 2003/04 proportions of 18 per cent and 33 per cent respectively). The proportion of solemn and summary sentence only appeals which took this long were much lower, at 10 per cent and 6 per cent respectively.

The additional resources made available since the start of 2004 to clear the backlog of criminal appeals are reflected in the relatively high proportion of solemn and summary sentence appeals concluded in 2003/04 and 2004/05 whose duration was 6 months or more. The latest available management information from the High Court of Justiciary indicates that there is now, at November 2005, no current backlog of criminal appeals.

(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 completed. It should also be noted that the duration of a criminal appeal case will in part depend upon the time it takes for an appellant to prepare their case. An appeal hearing date will not generally be allocated until the appellant is ready to proceed.)

Chart 1: Criminal appeals by type of appeal and average duration, 1995//96-2004/05

Chart 2: Criminal appeals, by type of court of first instance and average duration, 1995/96-2004/05

Table 3: Criminal appeals against conviction and sentence, percentage by duration by type of appeal, 1995/96-2004/05

1. Incorporates revised data.
2. Includes appeals relating to acquittals.
3. Includes appeals against conviction and sentence

Of the 3,152 appeals concluded in 2004/05, 14 per cent related to conviction alone, 80 per cent to sentence alone and 6 per cent to both conviction and sentence. A very small number of appeals related to the leniency of a sentence or an acquittal. The majority (70 per cent) of appeals involved persons who had been given a custodial sentence while a further 22 per cent related to persons who had been fined.

Chart 3: Criminal appeals, by type of appeal, 2004/05

Table 4: Criminal appeals, by main crime and disposal under appeal, 2004/05

- 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 2003.

The total of 3,152 completed appeals in 2004/05 was equivalent to around two per cent of the total number of persons convicted in criminal proceedings. As a proportion of all persons convicted, appeals were relatively more frequent in cases involving custodial sentences (13 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 9 per cent for sentences of up to 6 months compared to 67 per cent for cases involving sentences of 4 years and over.

Of the total number of appeals completed in 2004/05, 45 per cent were refused at the sift stage or abandoned, while a further 25 per cent were dismissed. The remainder comprised appeals which were sustained, either in relation to an appeal against a conviction (5 per cent) or to an appeal against sentence (23 per cent). A small number of appeals resulted in an increase in the original sentence imposed. The overall proportion of appeals which were sustained was highest for cases from District and Stipendiary Magistrates Courts (34 per cent) and lowest for cases from the Sheriff Solemn Courts (25 per cent).

Chart 4: Criminal appeals, by type of trial court and percentage outcome, 2004/05

Table 5: Criminal appeals, by outcome, 1995/96-2004/05

1. Incorporates revised data.
2. Includes a small number of other sustained appeals.
3. Includes appeals against conviction and sentence.
4. Includes, from September 1995 onwards, appeals refused at sift stage.

Notes

1. All findings of the court of first instance are subject to appeal to the High Court of Justiciary, sitting as an appeal court. Convicted offenders may appeal against their conviction; against sentence; or against both conviction and sentence. The right to appeal sentence alone in summary cases has been available since 1981, following changes introduced by the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1980. From late September 1995 leave to appeal must, in nearly all cases, be granted by a High Court judge; refusal of leave may be appealed to the High Court. The Lord Advocate has a right to refer a case resulting in acquittal to the High Court for a decision on a point of law (though this does not affect the acquittal), while the Crown also has a right of appeal against a sentence on grounds of undue leniency.

2. The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission ( SCCRC) was established on 1 April 1999 to review and investigate cases of suspected wrongful conviction and/or sentence 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 that a reference should be made, it may refer a case to the High Court. Once a case is referred, the High Court will determine the case as if it was a normal appeal.

3. 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.

4. 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 14 November 2005. Some minor revisions to data published previously for previous years have been incorporated into this Statistics Release; any further revisions to the data will be reported in future Statistics Releases.

5. 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.

6. At the request of users and data providers, consulted through the SCOTSTAT Crime and Justice Committee, statistical publications in the criminal justice series have been changed to present information on a financial year basis.

7. This Statistics Release may be viewed on the Scottish Executive Internet Web site: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/stats/bulletins/00460 .

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