Legal experts question courts service’s ‘odd’ decision to publish offensive comments

The comments came from a criminal appeal case involving a man who exchanged a number of “grossly offensive” and “indecent” jokes with a friend on a social networking site about the death of a child and made sexual remarks about children.

He successfully appealed to have his name removed from the sex offenders’ register.

However, his comments were deemed offensive enough that the public were told to leave the courtroom when they were read out.

Speaking to The Herald, Professor James Chalmers, regius professor of law at the University of Glasgow, said it was “a bit odd”.

He added: “This is something that the prosecutor thought was worth taking to court because it was so offensive, but the court happily repeats it in its judgment and posts it online.

“If the court’s happy to publish the comments itself, you’ve really got to wonder about the decision to prosecute.”

Brian McConnachie QC said: “If these jokes were so bad that someone has been prosecuted for posting them then putting them on the website as part of the judgment doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

The Criminal Appeal Court quashed the order of a sheriff directing that the appellant be subject to the notification requirements contained in the Sexual Offences Act 2003, after ruling that while these were “sick jokes in the worst possible taste”, the appellant’s behaviour did not have a “significant sexual element”.

Lord Bracadale had said: “When the appellant’s behaviour is examined in the light of the purpose and effects of registration it cannot be said that the behaviour contained a significant sexual element. In our opinion the sheriff erred in finding that it did.

“As we have already noted, the appellant and the co-accused exchanged sick jokes in the worst possible taste. They were, however, clearly jokes; they reflected the format of jokes. In our view it was not open to the sheriff to conclude that the appellant was a person who constituted a continuing danger to others such that registration was required to protect the public from him.”