Taxi Driver Online

Edinburgh Evening News


Letters: Law doesn't protect victims from criminals


Published Date: 21 August 2009

IN considering the case of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, someone like me, brought up to believe that Scots Law is a fair and just legal system designed to protect our society and its members from those who would trespass against us, would naturally form the view that justice had been properly dispensed.
Now I wonder whether this is really so.

Shoplifting is a criminal offence, and usually prosecuted.

Yet, according to our police and procurators fiscal, if someone leaves a taxi without paying, no criminal offence is committed. Doesn't the lack of the deterrent of a criminal record for non-payment substantially remove the imperative for a passenger to pay the fare?

England has written Statute Law – the 1998 Theft Act (excluded to Scotland).

This affords redress through criminal prosecution for such theft.

However, in Scotland's unwritten Common Law, taxi drivers are not so protected. Here, the law "allows" them to be stolen from – their only redress through civil suit which is a prohibitively expensive and time-consuming process.

In the absence of a written constitution and formal statutes, the assumption that Scots Law is designed to protect the victim is clearly just plain wrong – we see here how it protects the thief at the expense of the victim.

Aren't procurators fiscal, through their refusal to prosecute such theft, actively protecting the culprits at the expense of the victim?

And, when made aware of the matter, isn't the Cabinet Secretary for "Justice" – Kenny MacAskill – refusing to take the action needed to protect victims, effectively denying taxi drivers their right to protection under our criminal law?

If it can't, or refuses to, deal fairly and properly with a simple matter like stealing from a taxi driver, how can we trust that Scots Law got the case of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi right either?

_________________
Skull, "You are a police inspector, aren't you?"
Cab Inspector Smith, "Yes."
Skull, "So, are you going to tell Mr Taylor what his rights are?"
Smith, "And ... What rights?"