Scottish court officials buy last batch of VHS recorders in UK

Court bosses have paid out £9,000 to buy the final commercial batch of VHS recorders in order to play taped evidence during trials.

Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service (SCTS) officials bought the devices following announcements production would be ceasing.

The SCTS had to purchase 30 machines, each at £300, as a result of problems playing CCTV evidence in cases.

Many CCTV systems still use VHS tapes that can only be played back on the devices. This has caused problems with cases being delayed and abandoned in the past.

Lady Dorrian revealed the purchases during a speech to the Scottish Young Lawyers’ Association, saying: “It is well known that one of the major obstacles to efficiency in our criminal justice system is the difficulty of storing and sharing at an early stage the vast array of evidence pertaining to cases.

“Case management works if there is early disclosure of the evidence. But currently the evidence, consisting of witness statements, physical productions, CCTV evidence, phone and computer records and expert reports, can be very hard to assemble, manage and, most importantly, share appropriately.

“We know there are more than 100 different formats in which CCTV evidence can be created, many of which cannot be read easily – if at all – by police, crown or court equipment.

“The Scottish Court Service has just had to invest this year in the last remaining commercial stock in the UK of VHS tape recorders, to allow the playback of evidence in that format!

“A system using digitised evidence should provide access to evidence to those who need it, when they need it, and in a format than can be used efficiently.”

An SCTS spokesman told The Herald: “The courts need to be able to present evidence in the format in which parties to a case present it, which is usually the format in which it was recorded. Thus, if evidence is captured on VHS, the court needs to provide equipment to allow it to be introduced from the original VHS recording.

“Therefore, while we are working towards fuller digital evidence presentation in courts, there remains a need to provide a range of presentation formats so that cases can proceed without delay.”