NATALIE McGarry, the disgraced MP found guilty of embezzlement and jailed for 18 months, should not have been given a prison sentence despite the serious nature of her crime, it has been claimed by the SNP convenor the Scottish Parliament’s cross-party group on Women’s Justice.

McGarry admitted embezzling more than £25,000 – including £21,000 from Women for Independence and additional donations intended for a food bank – in court last month. Her attempt to withdraw the guilty pleas at a later hearing was refused by Sheriff Paul Crozier.

READ MORE: 'There were so many lies', says Natalie McGarry's former colleague

At sentencing last week Sheriff Crozier said he been left with “no alternative” but to send her to prison because she had shown no remorse. The former MP, who spent the money on her rent, a holiday to Spain and other personal spending, has a one-year-old.

However Rona McKay, SNP MSP for Strathkelvin and Bearsden, told the Sunday National that though her offence was grave, the case highlighted the need for Scotland to rethink its policy on giving custodial sentences to women who posed no danger to the public.

The National:

Her call to act to take action to reduce the number of women being sent to prison in Scotland, is backed by senior legal experts and academics.

They include Dame Elish Angiolini, who while declining to comment on the McGarry case said Scotland needed to ensure more community justice alternatives to prison were available across Scotland. Recently the number of women in prison in Scotland has crept back up to about 400.

McKay meanwhile said McGarry’s case highlighted the current reality for many female offenders around Scotland. She told the Sunday National: “No-one condones what she did. It was very serious but it is clear that she is not a danger to the public.

“I think that a non-custodial sentence could be more appropriate. She has a young child.” Stressing that as a politician she had no jurisdiction over sentencing, she added: “I don’t see the rationale for it.”

READ MORE: Ex-SNP MP Natalie McGarry jailed for embezzling £25k from Yes groups

McKay, the first SNP MSP to speak out on the sentencing, is one of a number of high-profile voices claiming McGarry’s case highlights the need for prison reform. Last Thursday Margaret Curran, the former Labour MP ousted when McGarry won her Glasgow East seat in 2015 tweeted: “Natalie and I had our differences but this seems such a harsh sentence for a mother of a young child. This must make the case for sentencing reform.”

Women for Independence, who called the police in 2017 after discovering that McGarry – who had been their treasurer – could not account for the missing funds, released a statement in which they said the missing money including donations that for many were “a real sacrifice”.

The National:

But it also highlighted its work on campaigning for women caught up in the criminal justice system.

The organisational was instrumental in the campaign to halt the 2014 proposal to build of a woman’s “super prison” to replace HMP Cornton Vale. The success of the campaign led to a commitment to create small stand-alone units, the creation of two of which – in Glasgow and Dundee – are now progressing.

Its statement continued: “We believe most women serving custodial sentences would be better served by community disposals which do not disrupt families, children or in the long run cost more but which can demonstrate real benefits to women to cut re-offending while making a valuable contribution to the community.

“We respect the sheriff’s decision given his comments on the seriousness of the matter. We are frustrated however that there are not more alternatives to prison available for sheriffs to consider and we will continue to campaign on this issue.”

NON-custodial alternatives include community pay-back orders, restriction of liberty orders, drug treatment and testing orders or bail supervision, however provision has been described as “a postcode lottery”. It is argued there should also be greater uptake for men who pose no danger to the public.

Dr Margaret Malloch, associate director at the Scottish Centre for Criminal Justice Research and criminology professor at the University of Stirling, said McGarry’s case raised questions about the purpose served by imposing a custodial sentence.

“I am unlikely to sleep easier in my bed knowing that Natalie McGarry has been removed from society,” she said.

It is argued that as over 90% of women are sentenced to less than 12 months, most could be handed non-custodial alternatives. Most are not violent, though about 70% of women are victims of domestic violence. The majority have mental health issues.

The National:

Currently most women serve their sentences at Polmont, with about 80 women at Cornton Vale. Plans are underway for the construction of custodial units which will reduce the total number of beds for women to 230 across Scotland.

“Although attention seemed to be directed to the development of custodial units in local communities, wider calls were for the development of services that were preventative, supportive and reintegrative,” added Malloch.

“There have been various interventions across Scotland aimed at supporting women at risk of custody and many evaluations which showed that they were often very successful in engaging women. Unfortunately, too many were only funded for the short term.

“We are not going to make significant reductions to the number of women sent to prison by relying on a criminal justice system – with the prison as the central and overshadowing feature – and where punishment and pain are seen as appropriate ‘deterrents’.”

Former Lord Advocate Angiolini told the Sunday National that she had not followed the McGarry case. However she agreed with campaigners that more was needed to tackle the continued over-use of custodial sentencing for women.

In 2012 she led the Commission on Women Offenders, whose report on female offenders called for a radical overhaul of the justice system, and called Cornton Vale in Stirling “not fit for purpose”. Though some recommendations such as a substantial reduction of prison sentences of three months have been made – which the Scottish Government has now agreed to increase to 12 months - other suggested improvements have not, she claimed.

“There are many reasons why prison can be complete waste of tax payers money,” she said. “If women have committed serious offences then they should be incarcerated. But often our judges need to understand what changes behaviour.” She claimed that significant advances had been made, with some judges “desperate to keep people out of prison” but added: “I think the change in attitudes has been day and night. Yet there is still a deficit in how they are trained.

“We should be doing everything in our power to make sure there are robust alternatives that both sheriffs and the public have confidence in. Therein lies the difficulty.

“We have a prison service, and we have a police service but we don’t have national probation or community justice services in Scotland so there is always going to be a weakness.”

ANNE Pinkman, of Prison Reform Trust, said that due to funding cuts some community alternative programmes had been forced to close, forcing courts to hand down custodial sentences. “It can frustrate sentencers,” she added. “We don’t have a universal provision for women across the country. There is a postcode lottery. What we need are greater resources for credible and sustainable alternatives.”

Nancy Loucks, chief executive of Families Outside, said that international standards on considering the best interests of a child in sentencing parents were ignored “in most cases”.

“Solicitors do not raise them in their arguments, as few criminal defence solicitors have been trained in children’s rights,” she added. “Imprisonment of a household member is one of the 10 Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) proven to increase the risk of poor long-term outcomes for health and wellbeing. It is also linked with a five-fold increase in exposure to other ACEs.

“Adult criminal courts routinely fail to recognise children’s human rights in their decision making, despite the often devastating short and long-term consequences for children of sending a parent to prison.”

A Scottish Government spokeswoman said that its plans to extend the presumption against short sentences to 12 months would benefit women in the justice system.

“Many women serving prison sentences have complex needs that contribute to frequent offending,” she added. “We are committed to helping them tackle those problems in the community so they can escape prison’s revolving door, rather than taking away the stability they have in their home and family.

“The direction of the Scottish Government’s penal policy is in line with the recommendations of the Angiolini Commission on Women Offenders. There are many great examples of community-based partners providing a strong focus on keeping women out of the justice system”