A widower who waited seven years for a conviction against a yob who trashed his home and stole his late wife’s belongings has blasted Scotland’s justice system. Stephen Grant’s house was flooded and set on fire in 2016 but he had to wait until April this year for his day in court after the man failed to turn up six times.
Stephen lost his wife Carol in a car accident almost a year to the day that his house was destroyed in April 2016. He returned home one night to find the toilet ripped from the wall, the bathroom taps left on and his bed on fire. The man was a teenager at the time of the break-in and the police were unable to compare DNA and fingerprints from the scene with those in their records as they had been obtained before he was 16.
Stephen, from Cumbernauld, said: “Every time we had a court date, it would be difficult but we went along – usually my daughters and I. He kept not turning up. This went on for about six times. A seventh time a police officer didn’t turn up.” Mark Griffin, a Labour MSP for Central Scotland, who has been helping to support Stephen in his fight for justice, said: “For a court case to be dragged out for non-attendance, the cost of that is huge. Every time Stephen and his family got a court date, they were reliving the trauma of what happened.