Criminals are working off community sentences by sticking fake diamonds on greeting cards, Justice Secretary Angela Constance was warned yesterday.
The shock claim emerged as members of the Scottish Police Federation quizzed MSPs at an election hustings in Edinburgh.
Ms Constance, who said she was a ‘big fan’ of community sentences, defended the system, which is supposed to be a productive alternative to custody.
‘There are some robust projects,’ she insisted, while refusing to discuss the diamante case.
Scottish Conservative community safety spokesman Sharon Dowey said: ‘This astonishing example sums up the SNP’s warped view of what delivering justice means.
‘Victims of crime will be outraged that this criminal is getting off with little more than a slap on the wrist rather than being properly punished.
‘Allowing offenders to stick fake diamonds on pieces of card is the inevitable result of the SNP’s relentless weakening of Scotland’s justice system.
‘Scotland deserves a justice system that stands up for victims rather than one that makes mockery of them and repeatedly panders to criminals.’
Criminals are working off community sentences by sticking fake diamonds on greeting cards, Justice Secretary Angela Constance has been told
The recent case was raised in a Q&A after the Federation, which represents rank and file officers, launched its pitch to politicians ahead of the Holyrood election.
It said current policy placed ‘too much emphasis on non-custodial outcomes, even for violent and repeat offenders’.
Julie Stephen, a court sergeant at Aberdeen Sheriff Court, relayed a story from a force colleague who recently asked a woman about her community payback order (CPO).
She said: ‘Does anyone in the panel have any idea what community sentencing actually involves? I know of one person who sticks diamantes onto greetings cards, and that reduces her CPO by 10 hours if she does six cards.
‘I’m not entirely sure how that prevents her from committing crime.’
Ms Constance, a former social worker who supervised community sentences, failed to address the example, and instead defended the system.
She said: ‘I think community sentencing, it needs to be meaningful. It needs to be about addressing folks’ risks, and some of that involves challenging people.
‘It needs to be enabling people to make meaningful reparations to their community.
‘And it also needs to be upskilling people.’
Ms Dowey, who was also on the panel, said: ‘Community payback should be a deterrent, something that’s paying back to the community, like getting rid of graffiti on walls, but not sticking diamantes onto cards.’
Labour’s Pauline McNeill said: ‘It’s that type of thing that brings it into disrepute. Sheriffs shouldn’t be granting community sentences unless they are satisfied [it helps] the offender stop offending. If it doesn’t achieve that purpose then it’s not doing what it should be.’
Ms Stephen, 51, told the Mail she had been ‘absolutely flabbergasted’ when her colleague found out the terms of the CPO just before Christmas.
Ms Constance was at an election hustings event with members of the Scottish Police Federation
She said the sheriff who sentenced the woman set the hours, but the work involved was decided by social workers.
She said: ‘It has to be meaningful. You either learn something or you decide, I don’t ever want to be doing that again, like hard graft picking up litter on a cold day or clearing the streets of snow.
‘Sitting somewhere putting stickers on cards - how does that reduce your propensity to reduce crime? That’s not a punishment.
‘Some people are working in food banks. That’s good. But putting diamantes on a card?’
Liberal Democrat MSP Liam McArthur said there was ‘no doubt’ community sentences kept people out of prisons and reduced offending rates, but admitted: ‘That’s not to say that every community payback measure is doing what it’s expected to do’.
Green Lorna Slater said consequences of offending should be ‘real for people’.
The sentence would have been passed within the Sheriffdom of Grampian, Highlands and Islands, which covers multiple councils across northern Scotland.
Aberdeen City Council declined to comment.
