Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1975

357 Laying of previous convictions before court

(1) Where the accused in a summary prosecution has been previously convicted of any offence and the prosecutor has decided to lay a previous conviction before the court, the following provisions shall have effect:—

(a) a notice in the form, as nearly as may be, of Form No. 2 or 3 of Part III of Schedule 2 to the [1954 c. 48.] Summary Jurisdiction (Scotland) Act 1954 or of the appropriate form in an Act of Adjournal under this Act setting forth the previous conviction shall be served on the accused with the complaint where he is cited to a diet, and where he is in custody the complaint and such a notice shall be served on him before he is asked to plead;

(b) the previous conviction shall not be laid before the judge until he is satisfied that the charge is proved;

(c) if a plea of guilty is tendered or if, after a plea of not guilty, the accused is convicted the prosecutor shall lay the notice referred to in paragraph (a) of this subsection before the judge, and the judge or the clerk of court shall ask the accused whether he admits the previous conviction, and if such admission is made it shall be entered in the record of the proceedings;

(d) it shall not be necessary for the prosecutor to produce extracts of any previous convictions so admitted;

(e) where the accused does not admit any such previous conviction, the prosecutor unless he withdraws the conviction shall adduce evidence in proof thereof either then or at any other diet;

(f) a copy of any notice served on the accused under this subsection shall be entered in the record of the proceedings.

(2) A conviction, or an extract conviction of any offence committed in any part of the United Kingdom, bearing to be under the hand of the officer in use to give out such extract conviction, shall be received in evidence without being sworn to by witnesses. An official of any prison in which the accused may have been confined on such conviction shall be a competent and sufficient witness to prove the application thereof to the accused, although such official may not have been present in court at the trial to which such conviction relates. This provision shall be without prejudice to any other competent mode of proving a conviction and the application thereof to the accused.

(3) Where in any court a book of record is kept of the convictions in the court containing the like particulars as are inserted in an extract conviction, and where at the end of each day's proceedings the entries in such book are certified as correct by the judge or clerk of court, such entries shall, in any proceeding in that court, be accepted as evidence of such convictions.

(4) Where the accused in a summary prosecution is convicted of any offence and also of any aggravation by previous conviction, and is again accused of any offence in regard to which such conviction may be competently used as an aggravation, the production of the prior conviction, or an extract thereof, setting forth the particulars of the previous convictions therein libelled, shall be admissible and sufficient evidence to prove against the accused all the previous convictions and aggravations therein set forth.

(5) Nothing in this section shall prevent evidence of previous convictions being led in causa where such evidence is competent in support of a substantive charge.