The Scottish Government have asked the Law Commission to look at the issue of revealing the previous convictions of an accused to juries in Scotland. MSP Stewart Maxwell has proposed that previous convictions can be used as evidence in Scottish trials.

Maxwell has asked both the Lord Advocate and Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill to say that the use of previous convictions as evidence in new trials should be limited to serious offences such as murder, attempted murder, rape or serious assault.

"The recent trial and conviction of Peter Tobin in England for the murder of Dinah McNicol exposes the problems of the law in Scotland," he said.

"The evidence would have been difficult to understand without knowing that he had killed and buried another victim in that garden - yet in Scotland that evidence would have been impermissible. This is not the kind of evidence that can ever be used lightly and safeguards such as a pre-trial hearing with a judge to determine if the evidence is relevant are essential." 

"I believe it is time for Scotland to look closely at changing the law to allow some convictions to be used in court and I hope the Lord Advocate and the justice secretary will look carefully at this issue."

The move follows a previous task to the Law Commission to allow the Crown to repeatedly try an accused for the same crime, after the public failure of the trial of Angus Sinclair for the "World's End" murders.