Research by Dr Findlay Stark has been relied upon in a report published on 21 April 2015. The report was produced by the Post-Corroboration Safeguard Review (PCSR), a group set up in the light of the Scottish Government’s proposal to abolish the requirement of corroboration in criminal cases. This proposal was included in the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Bill, which is currently working its way through the Scottish legislative process.
The Scottish corroboration requirement (which applies in relation to virtually all criminal offences) entails that, before an accused person can be convicted, evidence consistent with her guilt, from two independent sources, must be presented in court. In short, a person accused of crime in Scotland cannot be convicted on the basis of one piece of evidence, however compelling. No equivalent general requirement exists in English law.
Dr Stark was a member of the PCSR’s Academic Expert Group (AEG), which produced a report published in October 2014. The AEG’s report was relied upon extensively in the PCSR’s public consultation document (also published in October 2014) and in its final report. For instance the PCSR’s final report recommends the retention of the corroboration requirement when a conviction would otherwise be based solely on hearsay or confession evidence. These recommendations follow from Dr Stark’s chapters on these notorious causes of miscarriages of justice in the AEG’s report.
The Scottish Government’s Justice Secretary, Michael Matheson MSP, gave a statement in response to the PCSR report in which he remarked that, "proceeding with the removal of the corroboration requirement in [the Criminal Justice (Scotland)] Bill would be neither appropriate nor feasible", given the extensive proposals for reform included in the PCSR, and the time left to consider the Bill in this Scottish Parliament. The fate of the general corroboration requirement, and the question of which of the PCSR report’s recommendations should be implemented in legislation, will be decided in the next Scottish Parliament (due to be elected in 2016).