Speaking at the University of Dundee tomorrow, Saturday January 11, the Solicitor General, Elish Angiolini QC, will set out progress on a number of initiatives, designed to have a wide-ranging impact on the modernisation of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS).
In her speech entitled 'A prosecution service for the new millennium' the Solicitor General will describe how the department has emerged from a period of intense scrutiny and review with a clear vision of the radical change required to meet the challenges of crime in the 21st century. She will say:
"Today we face responding to ever more sophisticated levels of organised crime, including terrorism. There is an increase in transnational crime and computer crime - the use of the internet to further paedophilic activity is a particularly disturbing development. We also confront on a daily basis the evils of drug related crime. At the other end of the spectrum there is a volume of nuisance offences which are characterised as minor, but which cumulatively encroach on the quality of life in all Scottish communities.
"The Lord Advocate and I accept that the old structures and approaches do not meet the needs of 21st century criminal justice. We will meet the challenges of the new millennium with responses which are innovative and based on proper analysis and research. We will maintain our commitment to justice: justice for victims, justice for the accused and justice for the public at large."
Mrs Angiolini will present her speech as part of Dundee University's popular Saturday evening public lecture programme. Speakers are invited from all over the UK and are selected for their expertise in a diversity of fields. Other guests in this term's series include Michael Aston, Professor in Landscape Archaeology and Donald McIntyre, Professor of Education at Cambridge University.
Keith Mackle, of the University of Dundee, Department of Continuing Education, which organises the series, said:
"Mrs Angiolini is the first speaker of this term's series of lectures and we look forward to hearing her expert account of the initiatives currently being undertaken within the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service.
"Her lecture will no doubt be a stimulating start to what promises to be an enlightening and thought-provoking series of lectures."
All lectures begin at 7pm in the Tower Extension Lecture Theatre, Tower Building, and entry is free.
Contact: Sarah Cuthbert-Kerr at the Crown Office on 0131 247 2669
News Release: CO053SCK
Internet: www.crownoffice.gov.uk
By Jane Smernicki, Press Officer 01382 344768 j.m.smernicki@dundee.ac.uk