Stuart Munro and Mairead McCrossan attend Roundtable Discussion:

‘Trauma Informed Training and its Place in Criminal Law’

Our Private Crime solicitors, Stuart Munro and Mairead McCrossan, attended the Roundtable Discussion on ‘Trauma Informed Training and its Place in Criminal Law’ organised by the Law Society of Scotland Criminal Law Committee, of which our Managing Director, Stuart Munro, is a contributing committee member.

The Roundtable Discussion on ‘Trauma Informed Training and its Place in Criminal Law’ was organised following the publication of Lady Dorrian’s recent report ‘Improving the Management of Sexual Offence Cases’. 

The aim of the Criminal Law Committee Roundtable Discussion was to raise awareness on the prevalence of re-traumatisation and the impact of trauma that affects victims, complainers, and witnesses involved in sexual offence cases in the Scottish criminal courts.  

The training session emphasised the importance of raising trauma informed awareness and promoting the implementation of trauma informed practice throughout the legal profession in Scotland and across all court forums that involve victims, complainers, and witnesses of sexual offences.

Dr Bruce, NHS Education for Scotland, presented the beginning of the session exploring the question, ‘What do we mean by trauma informed training and practice?’ 

Embedding the principles of safety, choice, collaboration, empowerment, and trust were discussed as key to developing a trauma informed practice within the legal profession.

Legal practitioners should recognise how the impact of trauma affects their clients who are complainers in sexual offence cases and adapt their response to their clients in a supportive manner.  Legal practitioners should resist re-traumatisation when preparing their client’s case particularly during the process of obtaining their client’s witness statement and collating medical evidence. 

The aim for legal practitioners is to prevent acting in a manner that may create further harm to their client.

 Livingstone Brown Solicitors are committed to continually learning about trauma informed principles and implementing trauma informed practice in our client care and service.

Contact our Litigation Lawyers today

If you are a victim of a sexual offence and require independent legal advice, or would like to discuss anything above on a confidential basis, please contact Stuart Munro or Mairead McCrossan, call 0141 429 8166, or fill out our online enquiry form.