I read your editorial on the shortcomings of the sheriff court system with interest but with scepticism ("Case is overwhelming for speedy sheriff court reform", The Herald, September 24). I wish I could believe that some improvement in the administration of the sheriff court system was likely, but I am not optimistic.

Over the years I have been privileged to support many hundreds of sheriff court witnesses, including victims, at court and I can testify to the inordinate and unaccountable delays which routinely delay the progress of cases. Witnesses are summoned to court, often many months after the incident in question, and usually having heard nothing from police or prosecutors in the interim. Once at court, they are made to wait, uninformed and largely ignored, in dismal surroundings for hours on end. Some of them literally do not understand why they are there; others have only the vaguest recollection of the evidence expected of them. All of them are extremely nervous. All too often they are sent away, unheard, at the end of the court day because their case has not proceeded as planned. They are then made to repeat the process as often as deemed necessary until their case is eventually heard or deserted due to some procedural error or deficiency. Most of these good folk have never encountered the court system before. Their anxiety, frustration and bewilderment is immense but is seldom, if ever, acknowledged by the court system.

The 26 week "efficiency" target for completion of cases is hardly ambitious to start with. The fact that 35 per cent of cases miss the target is disgraceful. In addition to severely depressing staff morale, swingeing cuts to the budgets of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) and the Scottish Court Service (SCS) have merely served to accentuate and exacerbate longstanding and entrenched failings in the court system. Many everyday court procedures are arcane, archaic and ritualistic. Quaint Spanish customs abound. New technology is seldom, and inexpertly, used. There appears to be little or no cohesion between the three main players, COPFS, SCS, and sheriffs; each seems to relish the protection of their own unassailable bubble.

The underlying problem, it seems to me, is that the system has remained essentially unchanged for so long that the very idea of change is now almost unthinkable. Throwing money at the problem, as the Scottish Government claims to have done, is not enough. For meaningful and lasting improvement to happen, COPFS, SCS and the sheriffs must co-operate in an honest and fundamental reappraisal of the entire sheriff court system. They must be prepared, where necessary, to concede or share jealously guarded status or authority. They must be prepared to cast off age-old shibboleths and rituals which appear grand and esoteric but which in the present day serve no useful purpose.

Above all, the system must learn to respect the value the victims and witnesses who undergo the frightening ordeal of coming to court to give the evidence without which no prosecution would succeed.

Iain Stuart,

34 Oakbank Crescent,

Perth.