HM Prison Barlinnie is the largest prison in Scotland. It is operated by the Scottish Prison Service and is located in the residential suburb of Riddrie, in the north east of Glasgow, Scotland. It is informally known locally as The Big Hoose, Bar and Bar-L. In 2018, plans for its closure were announced.
Barlinnie was designed by Major General Thomas Bernard Collinson, architect and engineer to the Scottish Prison Department, and it was built in the then rural area of Riddrie adjacent to the Monkland Canal (now the route of the M8 motorway), first opening with the commissioning of A hall in July 1882.
Aerial view of the prison (2018) showing its proximity to Smithycroft Secondary School and housing
Barlinnie prison's five accommodation halls: A, B, C, D and E, were built in stages between 1882 and 1897, with each holding approximately 69 inmates.
There was a major extension to the perimeter in 1967 to create an industrial compound. From 1973 till 1994, the world-famous "Special Unit" placed emphasis on rehabilitation, the best known success story being that of reformed Glasgow gangster Jimmy Boyle. Cultural output associated with the Special Unit included Boyle's autobiography, A Sense of Freedom (1977); The Hardman (1977), the play Boyle wrote with Tom McGrath; a body of sculpture; and The Silent Scream (1979), a book of prose and poems by Larry Winters, who committed suicide in 1977.
A total of 10 judicial executions by hanging took place at HMP Barlinnie between 1947 and 1960, replacing the gallows at Duke Street Prison before the final abolition of capital punishment in the United Kingdom for murder in 1969.
Each of the condemned men had been convicted of murder. All the executions took place at 8.00 am. As was the custom, the remains of all executed prisoners were the property of the state, and were therefore buried in unmarked graves within the walls of the prison. During the D hall renovations of 1997, the prison gallows cell (built into D-hall) was finally demolished and the remains of all the executed prisoners were exhumed for reburial elsewhere. The first man to escape from Barlinnie was John Dobbie, three days after being sentenced to 15 years for a violent robbery in 1985. Dobbie escaped inside a laundry van, he was captured by armed police five days later and was sentenced to a further five years
Glasgow Sheriff Court is a Sheriff Court in the Gorbals (Laurieston) area of Glasgow, within the Sheriffdom of Glasgow and Strathkelvin. It is reputedly the busiest court in Europe.
The new court was commissioned to replace the Old Sheriff Court in Wilson Street. The new court is located at 1 Carlton Place in the Gorbals area of Glasgow, on the banks of the River Clyde and adjacent to Glasgow Central Mosque. It is a three-storey building of large cut stone construction and was formally opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 29 July 1986. In 2008, the roof of the building was fitted with 700 square metres of solar panels, with the capacity to create some 97 kW of power. The system cost £500,000 to install, has an expected life-span of forty years, and is predicted to cut £20,000 from the Court's electricity bill, whilst saving around forty tonnes of carbon dioxide per year.
The court deals with both criminal and civil cases. There are currently twenty-eight sheriffs in post at Glasgow Sheriff Court (five of whom are floating sheriffs). They sit alone in civil cases and are assisted by a jury of fifteen members of the electoral roll in some criminal cases (cases using solemn procedure only). The Sheriff Principal is Craig Turnbull, who replaced Sheriff Craig Scott in 2016.
The High Court of Justiciary is the supreme criminal court in Scotland. The High Court is both a trial court and a court of appeal. As a trial court, the High Court sits on circuit at Parliament House or in the adjacent former Sheriff Court building in the Old Town in Edinburgh, or in dedicated buildings in Glasgow and Aberdeen. The High Court sometimes sits in various smaller towns in Scotland, where it uses the local sheriff court building. As an appeal court, the High Court sits only in Edinburgh. On one occasion the High Court of Justiciary sat outside Scotland, at Zeist in the Netherlands during the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial, as the Scottish Court in the Netherlands. At Zeist the High Court sat both as a trial court, and an appeal court for the initial appeal by Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.
The president of the High Court is the Lord Justice General, who holds office ex officio by virtue of being Lord President of the Court of Session, and his depute is the Lord Justice Clerk. The remaining judges are the Lords Commissioners of Justiciary, who hold office ex officio by virtue of being appointed as Senators of the College of Justice and judges of the Court of Session.