A ban on legal highs in Edinburgh is responsible for a drop in crime, according to a report due to go before Edinburgh City Council. The news comes as police crackdown on sellers following the introduction of the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016. The ban was introduced in the capital a year before [...]

A man charged with careless driving has walked free from court after the police forgot to produce key evidence. George Drummond, 38, was said to have driven without due care and attention and into the path of another vehicle. However, the case at Forfar’s Justice of the Peace Court was [...]

Experts have questioned whether plans to transform the way Scotland locks up women will lower the prison population. The closure of Cornton Vale begins this year. It has a capacity of 375 and will be replaced by an 80-bed jail and five regional units holding 20 women each. Canada closed [...]

Raising the age of criminal responsibility would bring consistency across Scots Law, according to the Law Society of Scotland. Scotland has one of the lowest ages of criminal responsibility in the world at aged eight and the Law Society has welcomed recommendations to increase it. In 2015 at stage two [...]

WORRIED neighbours in Pathhead, Midlothian, have gathered to share their concerns about the sex beast moving into their quiet street. THE council preparing to rehouse Da Vinci rapist Robert Greens are turning a family home in a quiet street into a fortress. It has two-way mirrors instead of windows so [...]

Guideline judgments on sentencing issued by appeal courts in Scotland have been brought together in a new online resource launched by the Scottish Sentencing Council. Judges in the High Court, when sitting as an appeal court, and in the Sheriff Appeal Court, have the power under ss 118(7) and 189(7) [...]

A street on the outskirts of Glasgow was turned into a "war zone" in what was described as a targeted attack leaving three men injured. Trouble erupted on Sunday in Frankfield Street, Cadowan, was more likely to be "rival gangs fighting" than anything related to terrorism, said police. Emergency crews [...]

A woman who lived near the family of murdered toddler Liam Fee has told how she contacted social services after getting a "gut wrenching" feeling something was wrong with the boy. On Tuesday Rachel Fee and her partner Nyomi were found guilty of murdering Rachel's two-year-old son Liam in Fife. [...]

A blanket ban on so-called legal highs has come into force in the UK. Laws criminalising the production, distribution, sale and supply of what are otherwise known as new psychoactive substances began at midnight.     The chemicals, sold under names such as spice and black mamba, are designed to [...]

A paranoid schizophrenic whose savage attack left his mum dead and his dad badly injured is one of 10 NHS cases to be reviewed after a pensioner was stabbed to death. Graeme Morris, 38, travelled from his home in Brighton in October 2012 to launch an assault on his parents [...]