SCOTS legal aid chiefs insist they kept a "tight control of costs" in the longest criminal trial in UK legal history, that is estimated to have cost the taxpayer £7.5 million.
Edwin McLaren, 52, who put together the £1.6 million property fraud scheme, which involved duping vulnerable victims in financial difficulty to sign over their homes, has been jailed for 11 years.
He was found guilty of 29 charges in May following a trial at the High Court in Glasgow which began in September 2015 and heard evidence over 320 days. His wife Lorraine, 51, was sentenced to two-and-a-half years for her part in the fraudulent scheme.
Six others, who were also on legal aid, were cleared of wrongdoing.
It has been confirmed that £2.4 million has been paid in legal aid fees to the defence teams, which comprise of solicitors and counsel. The trial lasted as long as it did because the court heard evidence running over several days from numerous witnesses dealing with complex topics such as conveyancing and accountancy.
CCTV footage showed Edwin McLaren lead one OAP to sign away cash
Some witnesses were vulnerable and one woman was so ill that the court took evidence from her at home via video link.
A spokesman for the Scottish Legal Aid Board said: “Legal aid is paid to the solicitor of an accused person in criminal proceedings to ensure they are represented in court and the justice system operates properly for all concerned.
“While the cost of ensuring the justice system worked fairly in this case was high it was a very serious financial fraud that was exceptional in its complexity and which generated vast volumes of documentary evidence from the Crown and the defence.
“The amount of evidence in this case was such that it took the Crown over a year to present its case to the court, which is unprecedented.
“We have been liaising closely with the defence team in this case and kept a tight control on the costs but it was inevitable substantial fees and outlays would be incurred due to the nature of the proceedings.”
Only 12 jurors from the original 15 remained at the end of the case and at one stage there was a break of three weeks as one got married.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
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.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
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.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here