Not turning up for court can have serious consequences, but it all depends on who the absentee is. Last Friday there was a goodly assemblage at the Court of Session in Edinburgh to hear Lord MacLeod’s decision on the fate of St Paul’s primary, Hurlford, where opposition to East Ayrshire’s closure plan led to a sit-in by parents.
All trooped into the courtroom (two hours late and after a lowly TES Scotland scribe had been mistaken for a witness in adjacent criminal proceedings) and awaited the legal arguments. There followed an embarrassed silence, shuffling of paper and whispered messages from outside. Lord MacLeod was proving elusive. Later, he decided that since matters had started late they would not get finished that day and would hence be cancelled.
