Katie Allan's brother on grief, loss and why he's challenging law

“It unsettles me that I am going to be older than she ever got to be” he says. “It brings tears to my eyes to think there’s so much of her life she never got to live, so many dreams that will never be fulfilled. She was full of ideas for trying to help the world. That is an inspiration to me. A lot of my convictions are driven by the idea that Katie can’t do those things any more any more, so I am going to do them for her; to keep her flame burning.”

Scott and Katie Allan - the siblings described themselves as a wee duo (Image: Scott Allan)

Twenty eight miles away in Falkirk, an ongoing Fatal Accident Inquiry is examining events leading up to the deaths of Katie and William Lindsay, 16, who took his own life in Polmont six months after her. It has heard evidence Katie’s mental health had deteriorated as a result of bullying and the alopecia that had caused 80% of her hair to fall out. It has heard evidence of flawed processes and failures of communication. Scott, who works in hospitality, has not been attending, but his parents, Linda and Stuart, are keeping him up to date. Now, he wants to express his anger about everything his family has endured since Katie was arrested for knocking a 15-year-old unconscious while drink driving in August, 2017, and about a criminal justice system he believes is anything but just.

“When all this began, I was very young and I guess I had a subconscious faith that everything around me worked as it should,” Scott tells me. “But after Katie was sent to Polmont, I very quickly began to lose faith in the system to the point where I now think it needs to burn down and be remade.”

I had seen childhood photos of Scott before I met him: he and Katie tucking into banana splits and knickerbocker glories; the pair of them messing around with their golden retriever Dixie: Katie with her arm slung protectively round his shoulder. In those photos, his face radiates youthful mischief. Today, he is still boyishly handsome, but grief and rage have left their mark and hover close to the surface throughout our conversation.

Ask Scott for memories of Katie, and his thoughts turn to the Highlands and music. During summer holidays in Arisaig, Katie would take her little brother off on adventures such as a train trip to Fort William. “We were our own wee duo,” Scott says. The year they got Dixie - their first ever dog - Stuart picked her up and brought her straight to the caravan where his children were excitedly awaiting her arrival. And then there were the evenings spent beneath the stars. “Every year we would go to one of the beaches and dig out a big hole in the sand and put a big bonfire in the middle,” Scott says. “We would sit out in front of this fire, a sea breeze coming in, never being quite sure where the tide was and hoping it didn’t wash over us. There was no light pollution so the sky was clear, and there would be smoke coming off the burning driftwood. Katie and I would chat. Sometimes, I would bring my guitar.”

Scott Allan said he lost faith in the justice system. Photo by Gordon Terris. (Image: Newsquest)

Another night, in Edinburgh this time, they went to see indie folk singer Passenger. “He started Scare Away the Dark, and the whole venue lit up. Katie and I gave it our all for the whole song, and our voices were gone by the end of it.”

After her death, the Allan family returned to Arisaig, carrying her ashes in an old green rucksack, and scattering them on the shore. “When I go back now, it’s hard. I bring my guitar and sing some of her favourite songs - Walking in the Waves by Skipinnish, Wild Mountain Thyme - and part of me always wishes she would sing back.”

Even after Katie, a geography student at Glasgow University, moved into her own flat, she came back to her East Renfrewshire home often, bringing Scott wild tales of university life.  “I was more reserved than her, she was more boisterous,” he says. “Where I would tend to explore the world through books, Katie said: ‘Go and do it in real life - it will be so much more fun’.”

Happier times for Scott and Katie Allan on family holidays (Image: Newsquest)

Scott was starting his third year at Williamwood High School when Katie made the mistake that would go on to cost her life. After drinking on a night out, she went to her car to pick up her flat keys, then agreed to give a friend a lift home. On the way, she clipped a traffic island and hit the teenager who suffered a head wound and a broken leg. In March 2018, she pleaded guilty to dangerous driving while over the drink drive limit. Though a social work report recommended a non-custodial sentence - and her victim’s parents appealed for her to be kept out of jail - Katie was sentenced to 16 months.

“From that day, I started to withdraw, to stop doing those things Katie always pushed me to do, to go out and meet new people,” Scott says. “I stopped hanging out with friends, my life became going to school during the week and visiting Katie at weekends.”

The trips to Polmont were tough. Despite his age, Scott was searched. Visitors were kept in a waiting room and then a small corridor up a staircase before being let in. Naturally, the visits were constantly monitored so he didn’t feel he and Katie could talk freely. “I was determined to go even though it was bad for my mental health,” he says. “I wanted to be there for her and to help her out, but at the same time - how could I do that in such an alien environment?”

Scott says the same thing everyone says about Katie: that she was always worrying about other people; that she wore a “mask,” so they wouldn’t worry about her. This was especially true when her brother was present. “She didn’t want to be a burden on me,” he says. “But I was terrified, and I had to watch Katie trying to keep it together, knowing she was terrified as well.”

By June 3, 2018, his sister could no longer hide her distress. The FAI has heard a lot about that last visit: how Katie looked exhausted; how she told Linda and Scott she hadn’t slept for three nights because of insults related to her alopecia being shouted at her by other prisoners.

“That’s the most distraught I have ever seen her through all the events of her life - through university and break-ups, nothing has compared to how she was that day. So when I hear testimony from prison officers [who say they were not concerned she might be suicidal] I think: ‘Do you not have eyes?’ because I could see it as a 15-year-old.”

Katie Allan's grieving mum Linda (Image: PA)

The following day at school, Scott couldn’t concentrate for worrying. Then at lunchtime he took a call from his mum who told him to come down to the main entrance. “By the time I got there, my head of year had arrived. She and my mum went into a wee office, while I stayed with my dad, who was clearly upset. When they came back out they were both crying. By then, it was just: ‘Shit, something has happened’ and fear and panic. Then we went to my parents’ car which was parked looking directly onto the main entrance and they told me. I don’t remember anything about the next day.”

Like many people who have suffered loss, Scott’s life is divided into a before and after. Before August 2017, he was an ordinary boy navigating the travails of high school. But Katie’s imprisonment and death left him traumatised and unable to process all he was going through. For a while, he suppressed his own emotions and focused on looking after his mum and dad: cooking them dinner, washing the dishes, cleaning the house. “Sounds like what Katie would have done,” I say, and he nods in agreement. But at the same time, his grief and rage was building. Ongoing therapy is helping him work through those emotions, although there are still days he suffers “flare-ups” or finds it impossible to function.

At first, Scott followed in his sister’s footsteps. After doing well in his Highers, he went off to Edinburgh University to study psychology with the intention of becoming a therapist, then switched to philosophy. It took him a while to separate himself from Katie’s life and begin to live his own. At that point, he decided university was not for him. He left, and now works in an upmarket Edinburgh hotel. He is also half way through writing a philosophical novel inspired by his own experiences.

This enduring interest in philosophy has helped shape his ideas on criminal justice - ideas which have been reinforced by the treatment Katie endured and the FAI. “There is a lack of training and of empathy in prisons,” he says. “Polmont was not devoid of it. Some prison officers [who appeared as witnesses] have expressed regret for their actions, and that does not go unappreciated. But there are others who have not been so humane, who believe they have done nothing wrong, and it seems to me they must be lying to themselves because it is so obvious there have been issues here.”

The FAI has heard the suicide rate in Scottish prisons rose after the introduction of a new suicide prevention strategy Talk To Me in late 2016. Two more young people have killed themselves in Polmont since Katie and William, one as recently as August, 2023.

For the last five years, Linda - a nurse, former Scottish government adviser and honorary clinical associate professor at Glasgow University - and Stuart - a data analyst who works for Vodafone - have been campaigning to expose the failures they believe contributed to those deaths, and to bring about changes to prevent future ones. They have criticised the length of time it takes to hold death in custody FAIs, their often narrow parameters and the general lack of recommendations. 

Katie Allan with brother Scott (Image: Scott Allan)

Together with researchers from Glasgow University, Linda and Stuart have pored over previous FAIs and built a database of deaths in custody. They are also pushing for greater accountability. After they pursued a Victims’ Right to Review, the Crown Office told them there would have been sufficient evidence to charge the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) with breaches of the Health and Safety Act, but that prisons are exempt from prosecution. The Allans want that exemption - known as Crown Immunity - to be lifted.

“The long wait for the FAI has allowed me to become an adult, but watching my parents campaign - and campaigning myself - it has been difficult not to give up hope; to keep trying and not to allow yourself to think: ‘This will never come to anything’,” says Scott.

“At first it baffled me that things could be this bad and no-one noticed, but then, as I looked into it more deeply, I realised: people have noticed, it’s just that they haven’t been able to do anything about it. That’s why our case feels quite monumental. It’s the first time there’s been someone with the resources to gather information that is not publicly available, and put [the system] to the test.”

He is frustrated that - while the FAI is scrutinising the SPS - there is no similar interrogation of the decisions that saw Katie and William sent to jail despite their obvious vulnerability (and the fact William had not been convicted). “We have never denied that Katie committed a crime,” he says, “but once she had lost her licence and her car, she ceased to be a danger to the public. She should have been allowed to do community service and maybe - because her offence involved drinking - been linked up with alcohol support services.”

More broadly, Scott would like to see a shift in the way society views those who commit offences, with less stigma and more opportunity for them to rebuild their lives. At the time of her death, Katie had abandoned her appeal against sentence and was being considered for home curfew detention, which would have required her to wear an electronic tag. While she hated Polmont, she was also worried about returning to the community.

Scott has come to believe every prison sentence goes on long after the release date. “I think that was something Katie realised and it was a contributing factor to her ending her own life,” he says. “She was lucky Glasgow University was so supportive of her continuing her degree, but she wouldn’t have been able to leave the house, or get a job or be a normal 21-year-old.”

He has been disgusted by some of the attitudes he has encountered towards ex-prisoners. “I want to say: ‘Have you ever had a conversation with those you are talking about for more than two minutes? Judge them for who they are, as human beings whose rights should be respected’.”

That passion for social justice is familiar; it’s the same passion that once sent Katie off to volunteer with children in Malawi. Despite their temperamental differences, Scott is still his sister’s brother. Without her by his side, he says he’s “winging it.” But - as he approaches his 21st birthday - he is building a good and fulfilling life. Though he still has plenty of grief to work through, he loves his job, has a close circle of friends and is constantly striving for a better world. Katie would be proud of him.