IAIN McKie’s letter about the deficiencies in the Scottish justice system should be a wake up call to all of those who slumber under the misapprehension that all is well (“We live in an age when dissent has been suffocated and justice devalued”, The Herald, December 4).

He has seen first hand how the system can fail and how those failures can threaten to bring absolute ruin for those involved.

He is to be applauded for taking a stand and fighting, no matter the personal cost.

We should not view him as an outsider questioning a system that most of us blissfully think is fit for purpose.

It is a system that any one of us may fall into should the cruel hand of fate work against us.

I trust that all right-minded people will agree with me that, should that misfortune befall them, they will expect to be dealt with fairly in a modern and transparent system; one that was free from impenetrable legalese, in which people are held

to account for their decisions

and that is not prohibitively expensive.

Allan C Steele,

22 Forres Avenue,

Giffnock.