06/09/2011 Newsnight Scotland

On tonight's programme: My father is an innocent man - he is gravely

ill and one day the truth about this will come out - the words of

Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi's son. I want everybody, especially in UK

and specific in Scotland to see my dad, how he's doing, how he is so

sick. And after Ken Clarke calls the English justice system "broken"

with a dreadful record in rehabilitation, Scotland's Auditor

General says the same thing about our one - can this ever be fixed?

Good evening. The son of the Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bomber

in 1988 has granted the BBC access to his father at their home in

Tripoli. Khaled al-Megrahi said he wanted to show the people of

Scotland just how ill his father was. Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi was

released from his life sentence in Greenock Prison two years ago and

sent home to Libya on compassionate grounds by the Scottish Government.

It was widely reported at the time that al-Megrahi had a life

expectancy of three months. A Middle East editor has been

speaking to his son. How is your father? My father is

very ill. He's now in deep sleep and he's stopped eating and we try

to support him, we sit next to him, we pray to God. And stay as long as

he can. How long does he have, do you think? Nobody know how long. If

you ask me how long, I will say I don't know, nobody know how long.

He eegs lived a long time, hasn't he, since he came -- he's lived a

long time, hasn't he, since he came back from Scotland? Yes. Some

people say he is not really sick because he live such a long time?

We wish like that. Unfortunately, he is too sick. If you see him now

and if you compare before and now, you will see his body - he's become

very ill and very weak. We hope he can stay as long, we hope he will

stay long with us. Has your father always believed he was innocent?

Yes, he's believed and we believe that and we know one day everybody

will see the truth. What do you think the truth really is? I don't

know. I know my father is innocent. And one day the truth will come out.

You think the truth will come out in the end? Yes, yes. Do you think

he had a fair trial in Scotland? In the Scottish court? I don't know.

Do you think the process when he was in court and they twr deciding

if he did it, the -- they were deciding if he did it, whether that

was a good process? I can't answer that. Why did you decide to allow

us in today? I want everybody in the UK, specific in Scotland, to

see how my dad is so sick. I seen in news some people say he is not

sick and some people say he is not at home and some people say he's

run away. I want you to come to see my dad and he can't remove from his

room. He stay in his room between his mother and me and my brother

and my sister. We want to know the truth as well. We want to know who

did this bad thing. You are absolutely convinced your father

did not do it? Yes. He didn't. He didn't do it. When you spoke to him,

he never said anything other than that? He swear and he say, "When I

die, one day the truth will come." We see Our Father is innocent and

everybody will see how innocent he is. Khaled al-Megrahi. Now, the

revolving door of reoffending in Scotland has produced some

staggering figures. More than two- thirds of people sent to prison

last year had five or more previous convictions. Breaking this cycle

would have major benefits - fewer crimes, fewer victims, fewer cases

and far less cost to the public purse. The watchdog suggests that

by supporting just one reoffending prisoner into employment would save

�940,000 over five years. Over the border, the English Justice

Secretary today spoke of a broken prison system with a dreadful

record in rehabilitation. Are we in Delays, late decision, ditched

cases, when it comes fo justice, they have a price. The cost of our

our criminal justice system last year was �857 million. Audit

Scotland says �40 million was wasted, �30 million was lost on

decisions not to proceed with cases. Money is even lost when courts are

not organised. A piece of work in one part of Scott land discovered a

third of the people who were due to appear in court were already in

prison. That was not known to the court system. So, clearly, that is

a source of major inefficiency if that is fabricated across Scotland.

There is a cost to the police. Hundreds of officers pace the halls

of our courts waiting to give evidence. Many are weighsing their

time and money. �16 million has been lost to our police forces.

you go into any court house in Scotland you will see there are

lots of police officers there. Waiting for trials to go-ahead, not

being where they should be, out on the streets. We have a huge issue

with officers having to come the lengthth and breadth of the country

to get to court. The case are not running. Nothing of their doing. We

are doing everything we can to make the cases runment the court system

is letting us down. -- the court system is letting us down. The real

cost to the taxpayer comes from putting people back in prison.

Between 2009 and 2010, 9,37 it 2 people were sent to prison in

Scotland. 51% of them had between five and 20 convictions. 11% had

between 20 and 30 convictions.% had over 30 convictions. I think, it's

one of the most serious problems, quite frankly. Everyone involved in

the criminal justice system would recognise this. A very high

proportion of the crimes Ando fences are committed by relatively

small numbers of people. There are many intervention projects to try

to rehabilitate offenders. Once behind bars, well, it may maybe too

late for some. This charity works with young people, when all other

agencies have failed. They say early intervention is key. If we

can create a relationship, and then get them to listen to us, we can

then then influence them and get them to think about their behaviour

and change their behaviour. The solution has to be within the

individual. We know that there are ways we can influence and we can

help to provide opportunities for people to start leading a different

liech, and punishment alone will -- life. And punishment alone will not

do that. Punishment alone does not help people ultimately to change

their behaviour. Should we be spotting potential problems at an

even earlier stage? Prisons are full of young people who lack basic

literacy skills? We could paper the walls with research analysis and

reports on this. We have to stop rediscovering the same problems and

reinventing old solutions. We have to make sure in communities, in the

early age of every child's life they get support, nurturing and

stimulation they need. We know an awful lot about how that can be

done. Charities talk of hope, of people turning their lives around.

Behind our prison walls lie thousands of persistent offenders,

some will spend their lives behind bars. That is a costly criminal

cycle can no easy solution. We did ask the Justice Secretary, Kenny

MacAskill, for an interview this evening, he was unavailable. I'm

joined by Tom Baillie, Scotland's Commissioner for Children and Young

People and in Dundee the criminologist, Dr Stuart Waiton.

Thank you both very much for coming in this evening. Why do you think

Scotland that rehabilitation in general doesn't seem to be working?

It's probably not the aen answer you are looking for. Fundamentally,

society doesn't believe it's possible any more. I think it was

interesting, just listening to the comments made at the end there,

about early intervention. It's an area I'm very interested in because

now what is seen as the silver bullet for everything is early

intervention. What that suggests, early intervention, is between zero

and three years old. It suggest that is they, basically, everyone

in social policy now believes that, once you are three years old, if

you haven't had the correct parenting, the correct this and the

correct that, basically, you are finished. Which is a worry. I

genuinely think, the collapse of belief in rehabilitation is a

reflection of people who run society themselves who have lost

any genuine sense of how you can connect with, either young trouble

makers, or criminals. Whether that is at a moral level or social or

political level. For me, the collapse of a sense of, as I say,

rehabilitation, is a direct reflection of the loss of purpose

amongst people running society. do you actually believe then that

early intervention doesn't work? Do you think we are not giving it the

sort of attention that it needs? If you are saying it's an attitudal

problem among politicians do you accept that early intervention does

work? No, I don't. I think it's a massive fetishised area that is

seen as a silver bullet for all society's problems. In 20 years

time society will still have the same problems. Tam Baillie that

would contradict what you feel is a substantial body of evidence?

have to separate early intervention from early years. You heard about

putting support systems around young people. Young people where we

can prevent them going into custody. In fact, there has been some

reduction in our young offenders custody figures, partly because we

are getting some of those support systems, some of those whole system

approaches right, so will is right support for young people. Access to

employment. Access to hope, in terms of their place in society.

That is accept frait early years. The evidence is that, in the early

years, that is from pregnancy through to three years, we can do a

lot better, in terms of the nurturing of our children, in terms

of attachment of our children. That would heighten the chances of those

children becoming well adjusted adults. The evidence is strong on

that. You spoke this evening about the fracturing of services for 16

to 17-year-olds. Is that another thing we have to look at here?

have to deal with the here and now. We have young people who are coming,

for instance, from care, leaving care too early, and finding they

end up with prison careers. We have to do something about that. We also,

I know if you take an approach that looks at not concentrating on minor

offences, but those with serious and persistent offending, those are

the young people we can build the systems around and prevent the use

of custody. Let me ask you something briefly, if you don't

mind. The perceived political wisdom is that the general public

are unsympathetic to money being put into rehabilitation in prisons.

Is that true about research done about public opinions or is that

what the tabloid writers tell us? Partly true. The main thing is that

the public are frustrated about what they see as politicians and

social worker-types being soft on crime. Especially, in terms of

prison sentences. But, actually, when you push people to say, "do

you think you should give them support for work and to give them

something positive to do, so on and so forth", people generally are not

completely dogmattic about it. It's not as straight-forward as that may

seem. Right. Yes. Do come back. Nowadays, it's even more important

that we look at what works. We know that prisons aren't working. It's

appropriate that Audit Scotland are producing a report to begs

questions about how we are dealing with our offending population. For

my money, one of the things we have to do to get brave enough to

develop those early ages as well as looking at how we support the here

and now, the young people coming into the system who we can prevent

having careers, prison careers, long-term prison careers, which

cost the tax payary lot of money. Put the money and expertise into

that now? You need to do both. There isn't a silver bullet. You

have to do it now, at the same time as increasing resources and our

response to the early years of childrens' lives. Thank you. A look

childrens' lives. Thank you. A look at tomorrow's papers. The Times:

poll boost for SNP as backing for It's windy outside much the winds

will drop further through the early hours. Tomorrow will be breezy, but

the winds not as strong as they were on Tuesday. Showers will be

focused across western Scotland and north west England. To the east of

the Pennines one or two may get through, but mainly staying dry.

After a bright start it will cloud over in the South West. Showers

could drift by on the breeze. Again, overall, a dryer day than Tuesday,

it is a will be in south Wales. It will be a windy day across Northern

Ireland. Again, not much sunshine here, cloudy with frequent showers.

The showers will pepper western Scotland as well. Not too many for

the north-east, good chance of sunshine in Aberdeen shr. By

Thursday the winds will ease. Scotland will look like a dryer day

with good spells of sunshine. Further south, grey on Thursday.

The winds won't be as strong. There will be outbreaks of rain covering