Jazz professor dismissed from role at Royal Conservatoire
Following a disciplinary investigation and hearing by the Glasgow institute, the 58-year-old – who has been a star of jazz since his teens and founded the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra – was dismissed.
Mr Smith had held the position of head of jazz at the music school for the last 16 years.
The Daily Mail reported that the dismissal is related to allegations of a relationship with a female student who was over the age of 18.
It was claimed that Mr Smith was told to stay away from classes at RCS after the allegations came to light.
Smith was brought up in the Wester Hailes housing scheme in Edinburgh, was awarded an OBE in 2019, and holds honorary doctorates from Heriot-Watt University and the University of Edinburgh.
A spokesperson for the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland said: 'Following a disciplinary investigation and hearing, Tommy Smith has been dismissed.
'RCS has robust policies in place to ensure the safety and wellbeing of students and staff.'
Founded in 1847, Scotland's national conservatoire is a global leader in performing arts education, consistently ranked in the top ten of the QS World University Rankings.
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The Herald Scotland
2 hours ago
- The Herald Scotland
1,200 ex-cons returned to prison amid reoffending increase
And a leading victim support charity has called on the Scottish Government to reform the "confusing" process. In 2021, the Parole Board of Scotland recommended that the Scottish Government revoke the release licences of 241 people. That number also dipped in 2022, slipping to 226, before an increase of 19.5% in 2023 (270 people). Last year, 285 people were sent back to prison, while 152 have been remanded during the first six months of 2025. That is a total of 1,174 people. The number of inmates in Scottish prisons averaged 7,860 in 2023/24, up 6% from the previous year. (Image: Colin Mearns) Meanwhile, 1,009 prisoners had been issued with release declarations or recommendations by the parole board between 2021 and 2025. The figures reveal that 248 prisoners were paroled in 248, followed by 191 in 2022. The number rose by 18.8% to 227 in 2023, before rising again to 240 last year. And in the first six months of 2025, 103 prisoners were paroled. According to the parole board, the 1,174 recommendations made by the board include people who had been released from prison on a 'parole' licence, as well as those who were released automatically 'upon reaching their earliest date of liberation'. However, Scottish Government ministers are permitted to revoke licenses without asking the board for a recommendation, which means the total number of reoffenders could be greater. While the terms of parole differ for each inmate, all continue a standard set of conditions, which include acting in 'good behavior', agreeing to visits and remaining in contact with one's parole officer, and not committing any offence. Kate Wallace, Chief Executive of Victim Support Scotland, told The Herald that the parole system could be 'vastly improved'. She said: 'While we acknowledge that parole decisions are purely based on risk, we fully support any changes to the system to make it more victim-centred, transparent and trauma-informed. "Victims often tell us they feel confused by the parole process and that they are not routinely informed when the perpetrator in their case breaches licence conditions. This presents them with a multitude of challenges, including their ability to plan for their own safety. People deserve to feel safe in their own homes and communities. Victim Support Scotland has called for a rethink of the current parole system. Wallace added: "We look forward to the Scottish Government's upcoming consultation on parole which will give people impacted by crime a voice in strengthening this important process. "In the meantime, Victim Support Scotland stands ready to support victims of crime at any stage of their journey, including helping them to navigate the parole system. The Parole Board's Annual Report for 2023/24, explains how applications for release are assessed, noting: 'The Board only grants release in cases where the level and nature of risk are deemed to be manageable. This decision is informed by oral or written evidence in the form of witness evidence or, usually, reports contained in dossiers.' However, in June, the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) revealed that more than 150 violent offenders had been released in February and March 2025, in a bid to combat overcrowding in the prison estate. 312 inmates who had served 40% of their sentence were released over the two months, 152 of which had been imprisoned for violent crimes of a non-sexual nature. Prisoners who have committed domestic abuse or sexual offences are not included in the early release provision. At the time, the SPS said the number of incarcerated people in Scotland's prisons had reached a critical level. "While these releases have provided some respite,' a spokesperson said, 'our staff continue to manage an extremely high and complex population, with eight prisons now at red risk status, and the number of people in custody set to rise even further. "This has an increasingly destabilising effect on our establishments, with staff unable to do the critical work of building relationships and supporting rehabilitation, and prisoners frustrated by the impact on their daily lives and the opportunities available to them." Read more: 'A pressure cooker': More than 8,000 violent prison assaults recorded 'More psychologists in Scottish prisons could prevent overcrowding' 'No plan': Swinney accused over response to spiralling taxpayer cost of prisons Reacting to the release of the figures, a Scottish Government spokesperson said: 'Decisions on individual cases are a matter for the independent Parole Board for Scotland. Their decisions, including those around recall, are based on a clear risk assessment of any individuals being managed safely in the community. 'The parole system could work better for everyone – hearing a wide range of views is essential to developing a more person-centred, trauma-informed system. 'That is why [we] have already committed to a public consultation on reform of the parole system. It will be informed by direct engagement with victims, justice partners, and those with lived experience, driving a parole system that is fair, transparent, and trusted.'
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Scotsman
2 hours ago
- Scotsman
Hundreds of thousands of Scots 'excluded' from jury service due to 'bonkers' system woes
Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Hundreds of thousands of people across Scotland are being denied the chance of serving on a jury due to problems with the current 'outdated' system used by the nation's courts service, which is compounding the widespread problems faced by the criminal justice system. Issues with the functionality of the system used by the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service (SCTS) to look up postcodes means that approximately 400,000 potential jurors are not able to be cited at a time when courts across the nation are continuing to reckon with extensive trial backlogs. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The problems which prevent so many Scots from fulfilling a key civic duty is among a litany of failings with the current decades-old system, which the SCTS says is also resulting in the loss of court sitting days due to the 'inefficiencies' of ballot calls. Plans for a new 'effective and modern' system were paused last year as a result of Scottish Government funding cuts, but the SCTS said the work is now under way to ensure those people currently locked out of the system can potentially serve on juries. Systemic problems mean a significant minority of Scots are not being considered for jury duty. Picture: Keith Hunter/SCTS | Keith Hunter/SCTS In Scotland, jurors' names continue to be selected at random electronically from information supplied from the electoral registers, with around 700,000 members of the public receiving a jury citation every year. But the constraints of the existing SCTS system means many people living in new-build properties are not part of the selection pool. 'Element of exclusion' In an interview with Scotland on Sunday, David Fraser, executive director of court operations at the SCTS, pointed to the 'shortcomings' of a system that underpinned a 'cornerstone of the criminal justice system,' and stressed the importance of ensuring everyone eligible to serve on a jury can do so. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad While the random selection process means many Scots have never been cited for jury duty, Mr Fraser said it was not always simply down to chance. 'It's basically new housing developments which can't be allocated to our system due to the constraints we have,' he said. 'There's definitely an element of exclusion, because if those people have an address which cannot be ingested into our system, they are excluded. That's what we're trying to avoid, and make sure everyone has an opportunity to serve.' Without the attendance of jurors, solemn criminal business could not proceed in Scottish courts. Statistics prepared by the SCTS shows that a sizable minority of people do not respond to citations; out of more than 1,173,000 citations issued across 2021 and 2022, around 509,000 received no response. David Fraser, executive director of court operations at the SCTS. Picture: Stewart Atwood/SCTS | Stewart Attwood Amid wider issues with the existing SCTS software, significant time is required for the manual 'cleaning and updating' of the jury system on both a monthly and annual basis, with the repetitive work described as 'highly labour intensive,' according to the organisation. An equality impact assessment report for a new system also notes how at present, the way excusal requests are managed exerts 'considerable' demands on the time and resources of staff, with the process used by jurors to submit attendance records and expense claims deemed 'inefficient' and lacking user-friendliness. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Plans to replace 'outdated' system The SCTS was ready to push ahead with the plans for a new digital jury content management system as long ago as October 2023, going so far as to seek out potential suppliers to design and develop the end-to-end system. The procurement notice stated that the existing in-house system was 'outdated' and specified potential improvements, including the ability to send citations via email and group text services to replace the pre-ballot telephone call system, and the use of scanners at courts to record daily attendances. The SCTS held an in-person Q&A event with potential suppliers in Edinburgh in February 2024, and planned to publish full tender documents that May, but the project encountered delays before the SCTS advised suppliers it had placed the project on 'long term pause,' telling them in September that Scottish Government funding cuts had affected its budgetary plans. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Mr Fraser told Scotland on Sunday that since then, the SCTS had been successful in applying for a public sector reform funding package from the Scottish Government, which he said had given it 'the opportunity, the commitment, and the reassurance that we can push ahead and deliver this project.' 'Totally bonkers' that new build residents are being excluded But Scottish Conservative shadow justice secretary, Liam Kerr, said people would be 'dismayed' at how the government 'dragged its heels' over the court system reforms. He said: 'The haphazard process of juror selection is a big cause for concern. Jury trials are fundamental to our justice system and it's unacceptable that a huge bank of potential jurors are being overlooked.' Scottish Liberal Democrat justice spokesperson, Liam McArthur, said: 'I think to most reasonable onlookers it will seem totally bonkers that if you live in a new build development you're effectively excluded from jury duty because the computer system can't handle your address. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad "It seems the SCTS would like to move with the times but a lack of funding is holding them back. Helping them to overcome hurdles like this needs to be right at the top of the justice secretary's in-tray. Scotland needs a true 21st century court system.' It is understood the development and implementation of the new system will cost around £1 million, but it is hoped it will deliver savings in the region of £230,000 per annum. Mr Fraser said it would also transform the way potential jurors interact with the SCTS, which is for many people, the only interaction they will ever have with Scotland's criminal justice system. He explained: 'At the moment, potential jurors get a citation six weeks before the date of a trial, and are asked to call a jury helpline the evening before to see if they are needed the following day or not. In this modern age, I think a lot of our potential jurors find it hard to believe that we are still operating with our current system. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'The service improvements we will deliver mean the public will see a very modern platform they can interact with and which delivers the service they expect.'
The National
3 hours ago
- The National
Why Darren McGarvey wants out of the prison of his own persona
Given recent publicity, you might think this is a quote from Darren McGarvey's new book Trauma Industrial Complex – but not so. It's a tweet I sent in July 2021 in response to headlines that Prince Harry was to write another 'intimate and heartfelt memoir of his life'. At the time, the comment threw up a response from the Scottish rapper. 'Only if you are a one-trick pony,' he replied, perhaps a tad defensively. 'Confessional is just one facet. Every day I see healing from the identification people get hearing others share. You're right – it can be commodified sometimes cynically. But when done well for the right reasons, it's as legitimate and profound as any other meaningful writing. People are entitled to their privacy. Their stoicism. But that's not everyone's bag.' READ MORE: Israel in talks to resettle Palestinians in South Sudan, sources say Remembering this exchange, I was interested to discover that McGarvey's third book focuses on the dangers of over-disclosure. In essence, the book is a sustained reflection on McGarvey's experiences of going public and the consequences of becoming trapped in the story and the persona which shot him to fame. McGarvey has discovered he might be an unreliable narrator. He's tired of being described as honest and brave and authentic. He doesn't want to be led out onto stages again and again to tell pat, pre-packaged stories about his past. I don't love the title. A riff on Dwight D Eisenhower's famous reference to the 'military industrial complex' which criticised the unhealthy relationship between the defence industry and politics in the United States. For McGarvey, the 'Trauma Industrial Complex is the system in which the very real and urgent issue of mass unacknowledged untreated trauma is commodified, medicalised and repackaged for profit, validation and influence'. Like McGarvey, I worry our confessional culture is giving folk perverse incentives to expose more and more of themselves in public, as if confession is inevitably good for the soul. I'm not so sure. Learning to be honest with yourself is one thing. Telling Twitter, another. But then, I don't have a lifestyle built on telling strangers about my private life. And that must alter your perspective a bit, particularly if, like McGarvey, you've now reached the conclusion that you can't afford to live with one of the very things which made you a success in the first place. It sounds like a paradox, but I've often thought confessions can be excellent ways of avoiding responsibility. One of my earliest memories of hearing McGarvey on the radio was listening to an interview he was doing with Shereen Nanjiani. He told the interviewer he'd done things in his past which he wasn't proud of. People had been hurt along the way, he said. Nanjiani immediately responded to this admission by congratulating McGarvey on how brave and inspiring and searingly honest he was being. We progressed, without intermission, from an admission of badness into a patronising round of applause. The moment is emblematic of how McGarvey has often been treated by the media since Poverty Safari won the Orwell Prize in 2018. This dramatic mood shift wasn't McGarvey's fault. I suppose he could have piped up and forced the interviewer to challenge her vacuous transition from a recognition of wrongdoing to the transformation of that wrongdoing into the latest gritty and authentic confession – but why should he? It isn't his fault if people code him in this perverse way. In one striking story from the new book, McGarvey is confronted with a challenging question from a therapist during a more recent stint in rehab. 'You tell stories to protect yourself. Why is that?' he is asked. Over the years, it has been something I've noticed about him too. In December 2023, McGarvey published a startling post on Twitter. In it, he disclosed that he had 'been dealing with longstanding debt for over three years' but was finally free of its burden. In characteristic form, this was written as a triumph over adversity – but with a sting. The 'debt' in question was unpaid income tax. This could have been a dangerous moment for our young hero, but confession did its magic work once again. If one of the more hostile tabloids had got hold of the story first, you could have expected to read headlines along the lines of 'social justice warrior doesn't pay his taxes' – 'socialist boasts of big pig pay cheques but doesn't pay HMRC its due' – but instead, various social media correspondents suggested it was 'inspiring' to hear that this particular new occupant of the higher tax bracket had finally given the exchequer everything it was due. READ MORE: Far-right protest in Falkirk met by anti-racism counter-demo outside asylum hotel McGarvey's account of this debt in the book is given glancing reference – 'my financial illiteracy' – but nothing more is said. It takes real chutzpah to successfully rechart not paying your income tax on time into yet another inspiring redemption arc. I don't recommend anyone else try it, but for McGarvey, it worked because, as he says, he's good at telling stories. THIS book isn't primarily an attack on those who have been sceptical about McGarvey, but on the image of him held by his most uncritical fans. 'I was affirmed, validated and applauded until I literally could not function under the weight of my own bullshit,' he says. The metaphors he uses are striking. McGarvey characterises the persona he has developed for himself as 'a prison', feeling like 'an artist might do if they awakened one morning to find themselves trapped in their own drawing'. He speaks of his fears of 'conditional acceptance from a tribe that loves me only as long as I play my assigned role' – that role being the one with the unhappy childhood, addiction and good old-fashioned poverty that self-loathing, socially-conscious middle classes can gawp at in awed but remote fascination. In another passage, he says he feels 'like an animal caged in a zoo; aware I could overpower my handlers and flee if opportunity presented itself, though what I'd do, or where I'd go after, are unknowns yet too frightening to face'. As that final clause suggests, what is less obvious is whether McGarvey is really prepared to live with the consequences of breaking free of his handlers. In the book, he claims that his recent August Fringe run was 'already sold out' and concludes with a zen-like depiction of himself, reconsecrated to living a smaller and more sincere life, less in thrall to the need for external recognition and online validation, content to be setting up for recovery support sessions, putting on the kettle in draughty halls, setting out plastic chairs. His obvious agitation about waning interest in his output on social media suggests that he may not be quite as reconciled to the consequences of ripping the painting out of the frame as the concluding chapters suggest. I don't blame him. Writing and publishing this book must have been a terrifying experience. It is one of the most unstinting repudiations of a public self I've ever read, and if McGarvey is concerned about reactions to it, I can understand why, because this book assertively rejects key parts of his public appeal, activity and authority claims over the last five years. If it is taken seriously, it should have consequences, but I imagine an irritatingly large number of people will still say they find it brave, authentic and challenging – while ignoring the elements of it which are truly courageous, sincere and difficult. McGarvey writes with a combination of well-earned pride about his achievements and a degree of bitterness about how uninterested people are when he tries to escape his genre. 'Any time I've ever floated the idea of producing a piece of work that was not about my poverty, addiction, or some adjacent topic, it's been met with resistance or disinterest,' he says. 'I find myself continually drawn back to the same story. My audience, in many ways, won't let me move on from it. Or, at least, that's how it feels sometimes. Any work I produce which is not anchored in my own suffering in some way draws tangibly less interest from both audiences and, in some cases, commissioners – a problem when your whole career is based on you being the product. 'Without it,' he frets, 'people may lose interest in anything else I have to say.' But as other creative spirits have discovered, killing off the character who made them famous often has the consequence that people aren't interested in you at all any more. McGarvey is clearly conscious of this risk. And there's the big anxious, unanswered question underpinning this book. Without Loki, without the misery memoir appeal and the no-mean-city reminiscences, does anyone care what Darren McGarvey has to say? 'Will I ever just be accepted as a professional in my own right, like everyone else?' Time will tell, I suppose.
