The Crown Office has confirmed that it won’t be following the lead of its counterparts south of the border in issuing social media prosecution guidance, just hours after the director of public prosecutions in England did exactly that.
Keir Starmer has issued a set of guidelines for judges in England to assess whether offensive messages posted on social media sites cross a trial threshold, but Scotland remains in the dark.
Instead the Crown Office merely reiterated that they would take a ‘robust approach’ to offensive material, without defining what is meant by offense.
It is also unclear what status re-posting offensive messages written by others has in Scotland. In England this will be treated as a fresh offence but the act remains shrouded in scotch mist north of the border.