Illustration by Kimberly Carpenter

Notebook: Scotland’s police and justice news

  • Thieves strike at Scotland’s hospitals

  • Increased use of ANPR cameras

  • Scots and Spanish police work closely to tackle gangs

By 1919 staff

Notebook: Scotland’s police and justice news

  • Thieves strike at Scotland’s hospitals

  • Increased use of ANPR cameras

  • Scots and Spanish police work closely to tackle gangs

Illustration by Kimberly Carpenter

Hundreds of thefts reported from hospitals

Advent calendars, deodorant and a piece of chicken were among the items stolen from hospitals in the last three years.

Across Scotland’s NHS there were 424 instances of theft recorded, with patients, staff and even visitors falling victim to thieves.

Vehicles, scores of IT equipment, drugs and wheelchairs were also among the items which have gone missing since 2023.

One member of staff reported the theft of a pricey pair of Birkenstock operating theatre clogs, while another lost a pair of snow boots.

The research by 1919 also revealed that one patient reported having a pair of pants stolen, while another said they had lost boxes of chocolates.

Reg plate cameras used more

Police are ramping up their use of number plate detection across the country.

Known as Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras, the devices record a vehicle’s registration plate and immediately communicate the details to officers.

The use of the cameras has risen by 30 per cent in three years, and bosses are investing more to increase that further.

The devices have been made famous by TV programmes such as Hunted, which shows detection teams using them to track down contestants on the run.

Work is also underway to enable alerts from ANPR cameras to go straight to devices carried by frontline officers.

Scottish and Spanish police link-up to smash gangs…

The scale of Scottish organised crime groups’ influence in Spain has been revealed after Police Scotland requested more support in the country than any other UK force.

The Costa Del Sol has long been a refuge for Scottish gangs, a situation which has been magnified by recent arrests linked to Operation Portaledge.

Now a National Crime Agency update has shown just how closely officers here are working with Spanish authorities.

More than 1,000 intelligence reports have been shared between Scottish and Spanish police, it said.

“Scottish Organised Crime Groups have a significant footprint in the Costa Del Sol,” the report stated. “This is reflected in Police Scotland requesting and being provided with more support than any other force.”

… while Thailand revealed as most popular source for drug smugglers

More drug traffickers arrive in Scotland from Thailand than all other countries combined.

New analysis of Border Force disruptions has revealed 11 of the 20 cases in the past six months involved smugglers flying in from the southeast Asian country.

Six originated in the US and Canada, two from Europe and one was listed as “other”.

The trend has also been reflected in recent Scottish court business.

In November a British national was sentenced to 300 hours of community service for importing cannabis, while in March, a Brit was jailed for 18 months after being caught with the same drug at Edinburgh Airport.

Both had flown in from Bangkok.

AI won’t see you in court

Scots embroiled in civil disputes may soon turn to AI instead of the courts to settle their differences, the head of judiciary has warned.

In a speech about the ramifications of new technology for the legal system, Lord Pentland said the public may favour cheaper and quicker solutions.

He said while AI was already being used across Scotland’s legal system, “judges must not outsource their thinking to an algorithm”.

“It is not beyond contemplation that a possible future may emerge whereby the vast majority of civil disputes might be resolved between parties in ways that bypass the traditional courts altogether,” he said in a speech at the Royal Faculty of Procurators in Glasgow (RFPG).

John Bett, RFPG dean, added: “The Lord President’s guidance and experience will be paramount in helping lawyers weighing up the benefits and risks when deciding how to use AI.”

More ticket checks result in rising assaults

Increased ticketing checks by ScotRail staff have led to workers being spat on and pushed, the British Transport Police (BTP) has said.

Crimes against employees rose by 22 per cent last year on Scotland’s railways, although the overall offence count was down slightly on the previous year.

There were 634 recorded crimes, 151 of which resulted in injury. Staff were assaulted 140 times, with a further 40 crimes against BTP officers.

A BTP report stated: “Themes from the data suggest increased visibility by ScotRail staff on ticketing checks have led to spitting/pushing of staff.”

A Special contribution

Special constables across Scotland worked an average of roughly 140 hours each last year, as their contribution to the force was hailed.

A report to the Scottish Police Authority said their contribution ensured that Scotland was more resilient than the UK as a whole, where volunteering hours are dropping fast.

Almost 52,000 volunteering hours were clocked in 2025/26, with specials working well in cities and rural communities.

In addition, policing in Scotland benefits from 592 youth volunteers, who accounted for around 30,000 volunteering hours last year.

Drones could be new eye in the sky

More use should be made of drones to police Scotland from the skies, an aviation expert has said.

David Learmount said the devices could make for a cheaper and nimbler alternative to the force’s helicopter.

Police Scotland increased its use of the helicopter by 47 per cent last year, involving it in more cases of missing people and vehicle chases.

But Learmount said: “For the future, rather than facing the expense of deploying helicopters more and more, an option is to make more use of remote-controlled drones.

“They are much cheaper to own and operate, and are pretty good at surveillance where video can be linked back to base in real time.”

Busy police station locks doors to the public

A police station in the heart of Scotland’s capital has been forced to shut its doors to the public more than 100 times already this year.

Edinburgh’s Gayfield Square facility is central to policing both the city centre and the busy Leith area.

But research has found it was closed on 49 occasions during back shifts and 22 times on early shifts, while the night shift locked the doors 31 times.

Tory MSP for Edinburgh and Lothians East Miles Briggs said: “At a time when our streets are becoming less safe, it is extremely worrying to have a city centre station closed to the public on such a regular basis.”

Playing like FEDerer

Federation reps from across the UK will take part in a 12-hour game of padel tennis to raise money for police treatment centres.

The event takes place in Yorkshire in August, and will see David Threadgold, chair of the Scottish Police Federation, and Rob Hay, president of the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents, join colleagues from England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

When not playing padel, participants will use static bicycles to clock up hundreds of virtual miles as part of the fundraising efforts.

Stuart Cowan, chair of the British Transport Police Federation, said: “We are all big supporters of police treatment centres and have seen first-hand the amazing work they do to help officers recover from physical injuries and mental health challenges.”

A donation page for the fundraising drive can be found here.

Scottish businesses should hire people like me, says ex-offender

A former prisoner turned entrepreneur has said Scottish businesses should consider hiring people with criminal records.

Jacob Hill, founder of Offploy, said integrating offenders into the workplace would reduce reoffending and broaden the recruitment talent pool.

Speaking to the Let’s Talk Social Value podcast, he said: “Employing people with convictions is something every business should be looking to do, and there are many benefits for that business and for society.”

Host Sarah Stone added: “This is something Scottish businesses should consider – it all ties into the importance of how to build social value.”

Relief after the chaos

By Magnus Gardham 
Former Scotland Office special adviser

Got there in the end. That, at least, was the snap verdict of the Chancellor’s backbench colleagues, who waved their order papers wildly at the end of her 65-minute budget speech.

They have endured a miserable few weeks as downbeat briefings, followed by clumsy un-briefings, sparked fears of a political disaster for Labour and dented confidence in the government.

And the drama didn’t end on budget day, with claims that Rachel Reeves misled the public followed by this month’s resignation of the chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).

“The most chaotic lead up to a budget in living memory,” taunted Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch in the Commons as she highlighted the pre-budget blunder that led to this resignation – the early publication of the OBR assessment.

When the spending plans were finally announced – as we knew to expect – Reeves avoided the poisonous step of increasing the basic rate of income tax in clear breach of Labour’s manifesto.

Instead, she revealed a plethora of smaller taxes that Labour can argue will hit those who can afford to pay more. And, of course, a freezing of thresholds until 2031 which will bring more people into tax and into higher rates.

Those rates do not apply in Scotland where income tax thresholds are devolved to Holyrood.

“The Chancellor handed Scottish Labour another get-out-of-jail card”

But the Chancellor’s move goes a long way to explaining the genuinely positive reaction from Labour MSPs. They had faced the unhappy prospect of explaining complex intergovernmental fiscal rules – and why they would cost the Scottish Government £1 billion – had Reeves raised the basic rate by 2p.

With the Holyrood election looming ever larger, the Chancellor handed Scottish Labour another get-out-of-jail card.

The two-child benefit cap was popular with the public, but appalled Labour.

By axeing it, in what was easily the most heartfelt section of her speech, Reeves delighted her own side but also removed a potentially devastating dividing line between Labour and the SNP.

SNP ministers were committed to mitigating the impact of the cap, starting just weeks before the election, and were preparing to hammer Labour – sorry, make that “callous Labour” – for the £155 million it would have cost them next year.

The Scottish Government will now save that cash and have an extra £820 million to spend, to the end of the spending review period in 2028, through the Barnett formula.

Reeves tried to credit Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar with the windfall. “Because he asked us to,” she told the Commons.

That is not really how the Barnett formula works and the sum, reflecting UK spending, was a lot less than last year’s bumper £3.4 billion transfer.

It will not stop SNP claims of austerity in the run up to next May but then, nothing would.

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