Crown Office criticised over summary child abuse case

Scotland's prosecution service has been criticised for bringing only a summary complaint against a man who repeatedly physically abused two young girls for more than three and a half years, the Herald reports today. 

Sheriff Elizabeth McFarlane at Kilmarnock Sheriff Court jailed David Tannock for the maximum 12 months allowed in a summary case, but said the accused deserved four years, one for each year of his abuse.

The charges included assaulting a child from the day she was born until she was three years old. The sheriff said she had "never heard anything quite so chilling" as a recording of of the girl, aged three, screaming at Tannock not to hit her.

He also repeatedly pushed the older girl to the ground, grabbed her by the hair and pulled her, to her injury.

The abuse took place between January 2012 and August 2015 in a house in Newmilns.

Sheriff McFarlane said she was "shocked" that the case had been taken summarily.

The Crown Office said the sheriff's comments had been noted, adding that decisions on how to prosecute were taken after careful consideration of all the circumstances.