The other week, your reporter informed us we had a "defendant" in court, and now we are told that Angus Sinclair was convicted of manslaughter for killing a child in Glasgow (The families laid low by Angus Sinclair's evil, News, November 16).
There is no such crime.
Scottish legal terms aren't simply funny words for English or American terms. There is a difference between, for example, housebreaking and burglary, fireraising and arson, or fatal accident inquiries and inquests.
Maggie Thatcher found this out when she claimed an English injunction would prevent publication of Spycatcher in Scotland, then tried to interdict the world on the grounds that "interdict" was simply a Scottish word for "injunction".
The concept of the law being different was hard for her to understand, but surely a Sunday Herald reporter should be able to grasp it.
Mairead Mackechnie
Bowmore
Isle of Islay
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It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
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We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
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