Pressure mounts to axe prison immunity

Families given new hope in Polmont suicides battle for justice

- Richard Elias

A LEADING lawyer has declared the head of the Scottish Prison Service admits that the policy allowing the body to be immune from prosecution should be scrapped.

Aamer Anwar's comments followed a campaign by the families of two young inmates who took their own lives in jail, to have the policy abolished. Known as Crown Immunity, it means British law does not apply to the Crown a stance which encompasses both the government and the monarchy.

It has meant that the Scottish Prison Service cannot be charged over the deaths of Katie Allan or William Lindsay, who committed suicide within four months of each other at Polmont Young Offenders' Institution.

Yesterday, their families met SPS chief executive Teresa Medhurst to discuss the cases.

Ms Allan, a university student, was 21 and serving a sentence for causing injury by drunk-driving when she killed herself in June 2018.

In October of that year, Mr Lindsay, 16, committed suicide after being sent to Polmont following his arrest for possessing a knife.

But he was only there because there was no space in a specialist children's unit for him at the time. Last year, a Fatal Accident Inquiry was held into their deaths.