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Good morning. I want to follow the same line of questioning. I will not elongate it too much, because you have covered a lot of the ground.

There seems to be a general acceptance that things do not always go well 100 per cent of the time and that every case that does not go well is unfortunate. However, what struck the committee was the scale and volume of the negative feedback that we heard. We do not seem to be talking about isolated incidents. The whole experience of reporting such offences seems to be traumatic.

What improvements could be made to the environment in which crimes of this nature are reported? We have heard that they tend to take place at certain times of the day and on certain days of the week—at weekends, during the night or early in the morning. Some witnesses or victims might be intoxicated or under the influence, voluntarily or otherwise. During the night, officers at the front desk or on the front line might not be as trauma informed as officers would be at other times of the day. Could the police do more to ensure that that first contact is not as traumatic and scary as it seems to be for many victims? That is directed at anyone who wants to respond.

That response is welcome. We will come on to the issue of training—other members have questions on that. In the scenario that I painted in which it is 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning on a Saturday going into Sunday, what is the likelihood that someone who has had that robust and comprehensive training will be at hand in a local police station in the middle of nowhere? Such a station might deal with these incidents only a couple of times a year. Is it more likely that people will get that trauma-informed approach in our large cities, where the volume of cases is higher or where you simply have more staff on duty, than in rural environments or small towns?

DCS Faulds wants to come in.

Absolutely. There will be resource implications not only for the SCTS and the Crown but for the defence sector. If more cases per day are run than is currently the case, we will obviously have to provide sufficient resources to ensure that people are represented.

The concept of a specialist court is not new, and I hope that we can learn from the integrated domestic abuse courts. We accept that, if a large number of crimes are of a similar nature, they can be dealt with in a similar way in a central place, for example. What feedback has there been on domestic abuse courts from the Faculty of Advocates, the Law Society, the police, victims organisations and the third sector? Those groups will have had to interact with specialist courts in the past, so have any learnings—positive or otherwise—come from that?

Good morning, cabinet secretary and guests. The central question with regard to specialist courts is whether they are intended to be used instead of, or as well as, existing infrastructure. The fundamental issue, which is still unclear, concerns what would be taken away from other court mechanisms in order to specialise in those dedicated courts.

Would we be taking things away from existing mechanisms or simply adding to the capacity of the courts in order to clear the backlog? We need to clear the backlog—nobody disagrees with that. Each of those approaches creates its own set of very different issues, and I think that the committee is struggling with that. There is a top-level recommendation from Lady Dorrian, which seems to have a lot of positive elements to it, such as the importance of taking a trauma-informed approach. However, the devil is in the detail. What will the Government present to the committee and the Parliament, so that we can work through the detail? There will clearly be financial and resource issues in relation to how specialist courts might work in the future.

I am happy to leave it there.

That is helpful. Thank you for that. I know that we are tight for time, convener. Do I have time for one more question? I will then be happy to pass on to others.

My question is short but it might be difficult. In 2019-20, around 2,300 rapes were reported to police in Scotland, of which around 300 went to prosecution and 130 were successfully prosecuted. We all know that everyone wants to improve that ratio. What role can the police play in that? The taking of an initial statement is only one part of the process. More evidence must be gathered and robust cases must be given to the Crown to improve prosecution rates. What more could the police do to improve that ratio in the coming years?

I find it fascinating that, where the approach in question was trialled, the conviction rate for rape was twice the national average.

As my other question is about advice to juries, I will park it and let other members come in.

It is clear to us from speaking to people that, for many victims of such crimes, the current system is not necessarily fit for purpose. That is the premise of our discussion. I do not think that these are isolated cases. I have spoken to jury members who have been told different things by judges, and there is clearly an issue. For example, there is huge confusion about what the not proven verdict means and what happens as a result of it. That sparks the question about Moorov and different decision makers in different bits of a case, for example. There is clearly work to be done there, but we can take that up with the cabinet secretary and the Lord Advocate, so I will not press the matter any further now.