Acknowledgements
There is a short guide to the Equality Act 2010 contained in this bench book, and we are extremely grateful to Employment Judge, Muriel Robison, for writing this section and for her assistance later in the process.
We are grateful to all the organisations and their respective representatives who gave up valuable time to assist us with this work. A list of organisations who were contacted is provided in Appendix C.
We thank the staff of the Judicial Institute, particularly Dr Suzy Houston, for their assistance. We are grateful to David Dickson of the Scottish Sentencing Council for his help. We had assistance from the authors of the Equal Treatment Bench Book for England and Wales and appreciate their agreement in allowing us to link to that publication where appropriate. We thank the staff of the Sheriff and Supreme Court library for their careful research. We are appreciative to the Chamber Presidents of the First Tier Tribunals for their time considering the chapter on unrepresented parties. We are grateful to the Scottish Legal Aid Board (SLAB) for assistance with the section on legal aid. Jacqui Learoyd kindly gave us permission to reproduce diagrams on the area of communication difficulties.
Various academics are owed thanks: Professor Paterson of Edinburgh University helped with educational statistics in Scotland. Professor McKendrick of Glasgow Caledonian University gave us comments on the sections on poverty and on literacy and numeracy. We are grateful to Professor Sharon Cowan, of Edinburgh University, for meeting with us to discuss research (carried out with others) on rape trials, and to Eamon Keane of Glasgow University for meeting to discuss his work on accused persons and mental health issues. Judges also generously gave us their time in reading over early drafts and providing comments. We are grateful to Lady Drummond, Sheriff Linda Nicolson and Employment Tribunal Judge Robison for their time.
Finally, we are grateful to our colleagues, particularly in Inverness and Dumbarton Sheriff Courts, who assisted us with their time and advice.
Much of the work in this bench book is derived from earlier editions written by Sheriff Frank Crowe (now happily retired), which we wish to acknowledge.