Papers please!

"Wondering if this is of interest to you?" messaged my colleague Emily.

Well, almost everything is interesting to me, especially a tip about someone appearing in court.

The problem is, A) we rely on those tips and B) we can't always act on them.

Usually it's someone connected to a case letting us know - a survivor ("complainer" in Scottish legal chat).

Getting a name, maybe a date of birth, allows us to ask the Crown (or in full, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, COPFS), or the clerks of the court, for what's called a fiscal reference number.

As with any bureaucracy, there are plenty of numbers.

When you report something to the police, there's a police reference number.

When a report goes to prosecutors (COPFS), they create the fiscal reference number.

And the clerks have their own set of case numbers too.

But all those layers don't make something easier to track. In fact, it's almost impossible.

If you report something to police, they will give you your own case number (in fact, always ask for it). It might appear on a press release from a police appeal. Otherwise, you won't see it until the case is in court, and then only sometimes.

This isn't like North America where reporters listen in to police radios and turn up at the scene. Nor is it possible to relatively easily look up years and years of court paperwork.

Court rolls in Scotland - the list of what cases are calling in courts - are usually only for the upcoming five to seven days. And come midnight, today's lists disappear.

Equally, there is a "media portal" from the court clerks that also is only for the next week or less. And then it disappears.

So if I have a name of an accused person, I can search for it, but it will only show up if it's in the next week.

We got tipped off more than once about Peter O'Connell, charged with embezzling. We couldn't make any of his hearings: intermediate diet (to find out if both sides are ready for trial), or trial diet (where he pleaded before a trial), so we had to catch his sentencing. Luckily we did. And the tipster was the mum of one of the victims of the embezzlement.

There was another tip just this week, but only minutes before the court day would have started. It just isn't possible to catch everything. And some days, nothing might happen. On a given day, you might have half a dozen people not turn up. Warrants are issued for their arrest. And when they will be picked up and next appear in court is anyone's guess.

"Justice must be seen to be done" is a journalism mantra. But it simply isn't possible to see it all. And there are some courts now that go weeks without seeing a reporter, if ever.

Sailors bit off parts of ear and nose in Helensburgh pub brawl - bit (oops) of an unusual one. One incident, two separate indictments, with the pleas back to back. The description of what happened was almost identical, but to report them as one, I needed to make sure I was describing one incident.

Woman jailed for embezzling from Jewish charity - It can be unusual to see anyone jailed in Scottish courts. That’s a whole separate issue, but it is even more rare to see a 70-year-old woman put behind bars. But the sheriff said there was no other option given the amount she embezzled from the charity who employed her.

Of cases for which I saw charges:

Total: 157, of which 44 or 28% are domestic abuse

Why am I tracking this? Because the region covered by Dumbarton Sheriff Court has a serious and ongoing problem.