The Edinburgh Evening News on Saturday splashed the story of Chen Wright, the Jamaican rapist who should have been deported after serving a pitifully inadequate time for his first rape, or at least the first he was caught for.

The Mail on Sunday followed suit the next day, but with the highly appropriate heading: A Pitiful Day for Justice. The trouble is, almost every day is a pitiful day for justice in Scotland, at least for the victims of serious crime, their families, and the police officers who, in the main, bust a gut to get the right person in the dock.

To recap, the point of the new stories about Wright were that three appeal judges effectively enabled him to rape and sexually assault three other women rather than support moves to deport him, saying it was ‘irrational’ to conclude that he posed a high risk of re-offending. A jury also found Chen not proven on a fourth rape charge, another charge of indecent assault and two charges of assaulting children, but I’d bet my life he was guilty of the lot.

Wright was jailed for a pitiful four years in 1997 for raping a 19-year-old after trapping her in his home in Livingston in 1995 and refusing to let her go. Imagine the terror that young woman must have endured, wondering if he would kill her after she’d been raped, wondering how badly he’d hurt her, wondering about the possibility of pregnancy, STDs, HIV. We can’t know how she felt unless we’ve endured something similar, but we can imagine terror, pain, unbearable distress, and I know from interviewing many rape victims in recent years that those feelings don’t stop when the rape ends.

Wright was freed in 2000, convicted in 2002 of failing to notify police of a move to Edinburgh and then jailed again for drugs offences in 2003, with a wise sheriff recommending his deportation and the Home Office supporting the decision. But Wright had children in Scotland and argued he would lose touch with them. Aside from the fact that no child can benefit from having a monster as a father and that they would have been better served not to have him nearby, no consideration was given to the fact that the situation was entirely of his own making. Don’t rape women and don’t commit further crimes and you don’t have a problem.

By 2007, he took his case to the Court of Appeal and three judges, Lords Johnston, Eassie and Wheatley, decided that as he had committed ‘only one’ rape and had only one drug conviction, claims of a high risk of re-offending were not justified. Lord Johnston has since died, but we can only hope the two surviving judges feel the shame and guilt they ought to for getting it so badly wrong. By the time they pronounced foolishly, as they did, he had already raped two of the other women and possibly the third as well. How he must have been laughing to himself inside as he walked from the court that day to have found three such gullible fools on the bench.

Of course, it’s easy to be critical of those who have great responsibility that most of us don’t carry daily, but it’s equally hard not to condemn them utterly. Judges tend to believe they see all of life before them and are somehow blessed with greater insight than the rest of us. Did the three take advice from any expert in sexual offending? Did they seek guidance from police forces or the prison service about recidivism among sex offenders? I don’t know for sure, but again I’d bet my life they didn’t. A combination of arrogance and sheer stupidity would have convinced them they knew best.

What training do the judges have for such tasks? What learned tomes do they have to devour and learn from? None. They get a red jersey, they become masters of all before them, and most of them just love it.

There is another very serious point to make here, and none of the newspapers would dare make it. Lord Johnston was for his last years on the bench unwell, and known to be unwell by colleagues on the bench and at the Bar because of his heavy use of alcohol. Had he been in the upper reaches of a powerful business, colleagues would have had words with the necessary powers that be to have him removed from the decision-making process. The late Lord Dawson, in fairly recent times, had similar problems, and again short of a few well-placed whispers, no one actually made the effort to remove him from an office he was not, by his end, fit to hold.

I have no idea what possessed Lords Eassie and Wheatley to go along with him, but I note from media reports that Lord Johnston was the first-named judge and therefore the senior of the three. Benches of three and five judges do disagree at times, but the senior judge will normally have his way. So our justice system allows unqualified men to make decisions about dangerous criminals that can lead to women and children being raped, and it does not step in when one of those unqualified judges has a further, deeper problem that renders him unfit for the job.

The justice system, and the powerful defence lobby in particular, is very resistant to claims that sexual crime is different and should be treated differently, but it is wrong. If we could measure such things on a reliable scale, we would find the trauma and violation experienced by women and children who are raped exceeds the suffering of other crime victims, and, crucially, the effects are always life-long. That is not to suggest to survivors that they should throw in the towel. Most of them cope with the rest of their life admirably, but all of them are scarred for life more surely than anyone is ever scarred by a knife or a bottle.

At the heart of the failure of the three judges in dealing with Wright was a common, even wilful, misunderstanding: Just because he’s done it once doesn’t mean he’ll do it again. Well I beg to differ. Most of us, thankfully, are incapable of rape. Those who are not do not just suddenly wake up one day and become rapists. Sex offenders generally start offending as adolescents and their offending tends to become progressively worse. Any man who has committed the heinous act of rape will almost certainly have carried out earlier and possibly less severe sexual assaults, and will definitely be capable of doing it again.

Why we don’t lock them up for life is beyond me. Instead, the sentences are getting shorter and shorter. It can only be a matter of time before we tire of this unacceptable situation, and society might feel it necessary to dole out its own justice rather than relying on the fools in wigs and robes in our courts, and the empty suits in our £440m parliament.

My good friend Caroline Waterston, of the People newspaper, got me involved last week in following up a great story they picked up in Scotland the week before when I was on holiday. Jamie Cumming has apparently usurped the Sunderland Shagger, who had ten kids with ten different mums. Jamie, from Dundee, is on 14 kids from 12 mums, with another on the way by an unlucky 13th mum.

It was pretty clear from the interviews the People had secured for the previous week’s expose _ one with Jamie’s disgusted mum and one with Paula Ryan, mum of his tenth child _ that Jamie doesn’t exactly fill in his new partners on his full parental history. Even the ‘lucky’ woman he has fathered three children with didn’t know quite how prolific he had been.

Now there are one or two massive families I’ve come across in the job where the parents just love having kids and both (somehow) work, or at least the dad does, and they are pretty much self-supporting apart from the child benefit. But as multi-millionaires are eligible for that, I wouldn’t question their right to pick up that cash from the State.

The majority, however, think it’s OK to keep having kids and leave it up to the rest of us to foot the bill. I think that’s irresponsible, but once the kids are here who would want to condemn them to poverty just because their parents are scroungers?

But the point is this. Is there not a case for criminalising Jamie Cumming and his ilk? First of all, if he gets women to sleep with him and risk pregnancy without telling them that he has already fathered multiple children by many mothers and doesn’t support them, has he not achieved his objective of getting his end away via false pretences?

Also, has he explained to them that if they have a baby he will not be a meaningful part of their lives and it will be up to her alone to provide for that child?

If you took your newborn baby for a drive to a distant town and left it in a pram as you went home, you’d be charged with abandoning, neglecting and endangering that child. Is there not a case for extending parental duties of care to unborn children? How can it be right that a man can father a child and walk away without a backward glance, and keep on and on doing it to different victims/women?

Much of the debate on these issues tends to revolve around so-called feckless mothers, but I think it’s the men who should be the target of our contempt. At least mothers tend to look after their children to the best of their ability. Many women probably should ask more questions before falling into bed with the likes of Jamie Cumming, and until they know everything about him, they should insist on condoms, but an awful lot of them will believe it when a man says he loves them and wants them to be a family and, deep down, most women who love a man will believe that becoming pregnant will cement the relationship. Experience tells us that many of them might be foolish, but they are not wicked.

Deception such as that practised by men like Jamie Cumming is evil and legislators should consider making his behaviour criminal _ there can be no doubt his conduct is reckless _ and enforcing sterilisation. They could even raise money to help support his many children by selling tickets to view the operation. He’s about to have his 15th kid _ and that’s only the ones his mum knows about. Just how many is it his human right to have at our expense?

Been a while since I found the motivation to come on and blog, maybe because a lot of my work is published widely in newspapers and magazines, and I don’t really expect anyone to go looking for my thoughts beyond that, but was encouraged today to find positive comments. More than that though, I remain frustrated at the abuse perpetrated on mothers and their children by secret courts and by sheriffs and lawyers who abuse their position knowing that no one is watching and no one can report on their appalling behaviour.

I’ll offer just two examples: millionaire b/wanker who has put his ex-wife and young daughter through the mill following a bitter divorce. The daughter wants to be with mum, and is for the moment, but he continues to fight and argue that it is in her best interests to live with him. Recent court case saw the sheriff side with him, dismiss the opinions of experts in child psychology on no reasonable grounds whatsoever, and lambast the mother of the child even though he acknowledged that the father had beaten the mother up during the marriage, citing the husband’s own admissions and independent supporting evidence, including medical evidence. Our society is supposed to display zero tolerance of domestic violence. How did it manifest itself in court? The sheriff said he would make no further comment on the violence and berated the mother for having a tendency to exaggerate. Presumably medical evidence is not good enough for this guy.

Apologies but I’ve been asked to delete the paragraph that used to be here by the person concerned for fear of being ‘punished’ by our justice system. You’ll just have to take my word for it that this case represents the worst injustice perpetrated by the courts that I’ve encoutered in 22 years as a journalist, and I include the debacle that is Lockerbie because the people affected by this decision are children and they’re still alive.

You wouldn’t believe this was possible in Scotland, or anywhere in the UK, but within a culture of secret courts, supposedly *to protect children, anything can happen because the lawyers know no one is watching.

While desperate mothers betrayed by the courts fight for access to their children, who are usually desperate to return to living with their mums, often without the benefit of public money, the Scottish Legal Aid Board writes out blank cheques to murderers and rapists like that vile piece of scum William Beggs to enable them to complain about their prison food.

Is this a country we’re happy to live in?

*The notion of holding these courts in secret to protect children is a myth. In criminal cases of child sexual abuse, journalists can listen to the evidence and report on it. We must not reveal any information that would give away the identity of the child, so obviously we have to take special care when the accused is a relative of the child and care has to be taken that all the media report it in the same way so that composite identification does not occur by people reading two different versions of the same story. In civil cases, the same would apply. We would not want to identify children and we would not be able to, so why the difference in terms of our access? Secret courts do nothing to protect children, because the law protects them anyway (from identification, if little else). The secrecy exists to protect the lawyers and the legal system, which routinely abuses children by forcing them to give evidence in criminal cases in a system geared up for adults. This means they can be cross-examined by multiple defence counsel _ something that judges in England are careful not to allow. In civil courts, the abuse often involves a refusal to listen to what children want, and clear bias towards one party _ most often the father, often a professional with greater access to money and influence. It’s shameful.

Should have been at court in Ayr yesterday to see a convicted child rapist get his come-uppance for harassing one of his victims within days of getting out of jail after serving a lengthy sentence. Monday evening, the victim contacted me at 6pm to let me know, having just been told by the fiscal, that the case was off. Given that the incident happened way back in September, and that there have been previous delays, you have to wonder what the problem is. Crown wanted to move it back six days to 15 February, but of course one of the key witnesses can’t be there, so there will be further delays, causing his victims more unnecessary stress.

In Stirling Sheriff Court today with Debbie Watson, who had been engaged to complete twat Alex Roy, not knowing he already had two wives and at least one other fiancee. Roy appeared way back in November to be sentenced for bigamy having admitted it in October. The sentencing was adjourned in November to allow for time for reports. Today, a key medical report (which clearly is expected to be helpful to him) wasn’t in place. He got a further adjournment until 14 April. If a report is commissioned by his defence, should there not be a burden on them to have it in place, and a penalty for the villain in the sense that the judge or sheriff should proceed without the helpful report?

The common factor in all these cases is that the victims are at the bottom of the pile. No thought is given to how they feel about the unfinished business, the added stress of prolonged procedures, the lack of closure. Both Debbie and her mother were upset by the delays today. They had a wasted journey, as did I. But none of that matters. The courts operate for the benefit of the lawyers who work in them. The rights of the accused are paramount. The victims, both direct and indirect, of the criminal conduct are chewed up and spat out.

Debbie and Roy’s other fiancee have reported to the police the fact that while Roy is on bail awaiting sentence he has threatened, abused and harassed them. Should the sheriff who is going to sentence him not be made aware of the conduct?

Final point on expert reports: with about two or three very praiseworthy exceptions, the value of expert reports these days is virtually zero. Most experts will come up with whatever the person paying them wants them to. It’s time the courts stopped the gravy train that allows each side to commission its own expert. The courts should appoint one expert and their evidence should fit all. Any expert judged by his or her peers to have lacked independence by favouring one side or argument unreasonably should never be allowed to do the highly lucrative work again. The current system is a waste of public money, and like most other elements of our system, has nothing to do with justice.

Last week’s media coverage of numerous serious sex offenders being released from the standard inadequate sentences only to reoffend and destroy further lives was no surprise. We’re so used to it that such episodes are no longer guaranteed to make the front pages, although the Scottish Sun’s juxtaposition of the treatment of one such offender with the extremely harsh treatment of the van driver fined for not being in control of his vehicle because he was spotted by a twat of a copper blowing his nose (while standing still and with his handbrake on) was brilliantly used on its cover.

It’s of no comfort that similar things are happening in England as well. The mum of a girl of nine rightly wanted to know why Simon Heaton was bailed and free to rape her daughter despite having already been accused of a brutal attack on a girl of ten.

The law is reluctant to treat sex offending  as different from other types of crime. But it is different. The effects are life-long, unlike the joke sentences now being dished out by our courts. The rape of a child is now worth about six years _ which actually means serving between three and four, with four the absolute maximum even if you tell your psychologist as they prepare to release you that you plan to do it again. The police took such a case to court not long ago, demanding that an offender not be released as he freely admitted his ultimate fantasy was to abduct, rape and murder a pre-pubescent girl. They lost, and he’s in a community near you.

It’s time we demanded that the people who make decisions that ruin lives are made accountable. If a lawyer representing a sex offender demands bail under human rights laws or under the now outdated notion that an accused is innocent until found guilty (the standards of evidence have improved so much that you can be pretty sure if they’re in the dock they’re guilty), let him (or her) put their money where their mouth is. If the client offends while on bail, let’s make it an offence for the lawyer to have misrepresented said client to the court.

If professionals who assess a life prisoner decide he’s fit to release, or indeed if they release him earlier than necessary from a determinate sentence, let’s hold them to account as well if he reoffends. A few sackings might see them make their judgments with more care for the community and less for the offender.

It’s time voters left politicians in no doubt of how we want the justice system to deal with serious sex offenders. Ideally, we want them locked up for life, and if that’s unattainable they need to be tagged for life in the community. Most criminals of any description don’t want to be caught. The risk of rapists and child sex offenders reoffending and ruining more lives won’t disappear if they’re tagged, but if they know that tag will place them precisely at the scene of the crime, most will think again.

I’d suggest that such a policy, if embraced by any of the major political parties, might win them a few votes.