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Iain Maciver: Island trials of all kinds are trying local population’s patience

Yet more barmy plans for Scotland's islands have surfaced in the last week.

A 'Trial the Isles' scheme could bring new residents to Uist. Image: Jose Arcos Aguilar/Shutterstock
A 'Trial the Isles' scheme could bring new residents to Uist. Image: Jose Arcos Aguilar/Shutterstock

Even more barmy plans have surfaced in the last week which show how incompetent and uncaring officials at public and government agencies are affecting life in the blasted Hebrides.

A crazy workaround for recent problems with getting prisoners to court is the latest example of Central-Belt mentality.

With staff shortages and other difficulties at the private prisoner transport contractor, trials at Stornoway Sheriff Court were shifted to Inverness and Aberdeen. What a palaver.

Then, it was decided to return trials to Stornoway, but with firm assurances that prisoner transport would be efficient. The answer, someone far away decided, would be to take them for a spin in a plane. I kid you not.

While their case is being heard in court, the accused would be given bed and breakfast. That’s nice. Except it would be at Barlinnie. You know, the jail down there in the north-east of Glasgow.

So, the accused would have to be roused at 3.30am, taken on a drive to Glasgow airport, catch a flight to Stornoway at 7.10am, be driven into Stornoway and endure a full day in court, then be flown back to Glasgow on the 7.30pm flight. The prisoner wouldn’t reach the Bar-L until around 10pm.

After bread and water, they would catch a few hours of sleep and it would start all over again. Only a civil servant would come up with that nonsense.

HMP Barlinnie is located in a Glasgow suburb. Image: Andrew Milligan/PA Wire

However, there’s a no-nonsense, lean, mean sheriff in this here town. Sheriff Gordon Lamont – who looks a bit like John Wayne as the sheriff in the movie Rio Grande – has little time for city slickers who draw up plans without consulting anyone.

M’lud is rightly concerned about the accused’s Article 6 rights to a fair trial. After all, you can’t expect a prisoner to be able to defend themselves if they have had just a few hours’ kip, and are sleep-deprived and exhausted. Some trials go on for days, or even a week or two.

Trial the Isles

Another form of trial may soon go ahead here on the islands to tackle depopulation. Following on from a scrapped plan to pay families £50,000 to move to the Outer Hebrides, there’s now a scheme called Trial the Isles being discussed by the council. People come and stay in Uist for a bit, just to see how they like it.

A report says that if Uist becomes a “repopulation zone”, it may help the “acute depopulation challenges”, and mean action to attract and retain economically active people. Enquiries have already begun, and four houses at Balivanich are already being converted for the trials. Not so much a try-before-you-buy as a stay-before-you-pay, schemes like this could help to counter the drift away from the islands.

Another help would be having good educational facilities. But further education is being undermined again by planned cuts. Jobs will go, and another sneaky move to destroy island careers is to move college courses online.

The Stornoway campus if the University of the Highlands and Islands North, West and Hebrides.
The Stornoway campus of the University of the Highlands and Islands North, West and Hebrides. Image: UHI

If the staff who run these online classes for the University of the Highlands and Islands can be based away from the islands – for example, in Inverness, or somewhere near Barlinnie – you can be sure they will be. That is actually happening now. No announcement, just another underhand move to do down frail communities.

Councillor Frances Murray, a former rector of the Nicolson Institute, agreed that online learning had been important during the Covid pandemic. She thinks it should now only be used as an additional tool, or in emergencies.

It is a very poor substitute, in most disciplines, for face-to-face tuition – not from a glorified hologram fashioned with dodgy AI. As many experts have now admitted, it will be years before AI tools for learning will be accurate and robust enough to be reliable. Most of what you read about AI benefits is rehashed marketing spin. Don’t believe the hype. It’s still on trial.

Order?

As we’re on about trials, long before Sheriff Lamont arrived on the Stornoway scene, a certain gentleman called Alasdair Murray was at the same court for drunken behaviour on Cromwell Street the night before. The sheriff addressed poor Alasdair, who was still wobbly, saying: “Mr Murray, you have been brought here for drinking.” Alasdair smiled broadly and said: “Thank you very much, your honour. When do we start?”

Of course, everyone in court burst out laughing. The sheriff shouted: “Silence! The next person who laughs will be thrown out of this court.” Alasdair laughed. The red-faced sheriff bellowed: “I wasn’t talking to you.” But Alasdair was still giggling.

Finally, the sheriff shouted: “Order!” From up in the dock, Alasdair could be heard replying: “Large whisky, no ice.”


Iain Maciver is a former broadcaster and news reporter from the Outer Hebrides

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