 Welcome to the Justice Committee's 16th meeting of 2017. We have apologies from Douglas Ross and we welcome Alexander Stewart back as his substitute. Agenda item number one, the committee is invited to take item three in private, which is consideration of the committee's work programme. Are we all agreed? Thank you. Agenda item two is consideration of five public petitions, and I refer members to paper one, which is a note by the clerk. Can I remind members if they wish to keep a petition open, they should indicate how they would like the committee to take it forward, or if they wish to close a petition, they should set out their reasons for doing so. The committee is asked to consider and agree what action, if any, which is to take in relation to these petitions. Possible options are outlined in paragraph five of the clerk's paper. I propose that we take all of the petitions in turn, as they are presented. So, if we start with PE1370, independent inquiry into McGracky's conviction petition, this petition is discussed on page two of the clerk's paper, and I invite views from members on this petition. Stewart Stevenson. I note that the information that has been put in front of the committee says that, in relation to Operation Sandwood, the petitioners continue to have regular meetings with the police team and they have faith in the integrity and completeness of the inquiry. I would, in any event, have felt that, until that operation is complete, we should not close the petition, but I have increased confidence if that statement that has been given to us is a correct reflection of the petitioners' views, and I would propose that we keep it open on the basis that we wish Operation Sandwood to complete before considering what our actions might then be. Any other comments from the committee? I think that we are all agreed with that. We do note in paragraph 10 the submission that the recent publicity suggesting that the family of Mr McGracky will launch a bid to appeal against his conviction in the coming weeks, so we will watch that with interest and see if that affects where we go from here. We are agreed, therefore, that we continue and await the report from Operation Sandwood. Thank you for that. On petition P1501 and P1567 investigating unacertain death, suicides and facial accidents, those two petitions are discussed on pages 3 and 4 of the clerks' papers. Do members have any comments on John Finnie? Thank you, convener. I was interested, excuse me, on the letter from Mr Jones, an ex-D, particularly the second paragraph, which he comments on in paragraph 3. It is the final section of that where he says that this is all very well and clearly understood, but what legislative mechanism in place for the Crown Office pocketary fiscal service to notify the corner service that a body has been transferred, and he alludes to a particular incident. Indeed, that incident was in my own area there. I would be quite interested to get a response to that prior to considering closing that particular petition, please. Mr Jones alludes to an incident that took place in November 2016 at Tain. I am assuming that that is the Tain bombing range where the body of a land scoprol who may names was transferred to Hampshire. He questions what mechanism facilitated that with regard to—this is him commenting on the response saying that there are well-recognised procedures between Crown Office pocketary fiscal and the corner service. I think that it would be helpful to understand that particular incident prior to closing. Stuart Stevenson? I do not want to disagree with anything that John said. I am coming at it from a slightly different angle. Following the fatal accident sudden death Scotland bill, we have now got a family liaison charter. I think that it would probably be useful for a little bit of time to have passed to see if that is delivering the benefits that we hope it might do when we debated and passed that bill that I referred to in session 4. I think that that is an additional reason to what John is saying. Any other views? The county members should note that the Scottish Government of Crown Offers considered that they have made their petition in relation to those petitions clear in correspondence. I will just remind members that Mr Jones was not one of the petitioners. While it might be unusual to continue this, there is no reason to believe why we cannot. It seems to be the committee's view that we will seek these further pieces of information. On that basis, we will keep that petition open. Pee 1510 and Pee 1511, please and fire control rooms. Those two petitions are discussed on page 5 and 6 of the clerks paper. Again, I invite you from members on those two petitions. Stuart Stevenson. Thank you very much, convener. Again, I am going to suggest that we keep those open and the two particular things in the briefing that we have that are the hook for my making that suggestion are that the inspector of Her Majesty's fire services carrying out an inspection and the report will be available in due course. That does not tell us when it will be available, but it is in the nature of inspections that I cannot imagine that that will be a substantial period of time. I think that it would be useful to know the context of that report, because I am sure that he will, in looking at the operation of the fire and rescue service, have looked at the issues covered by the petitions. Similarly, a final report on deliverables from the command and control futures programme is due to be provided next week. Again, I think that it would be useful to see what the outcome from that is before we consider closing either of those petitions. Any other views from members? Are we all agreed? Yeah. Great then to continue that one for the reasons stated by Stuart Stevenson. We now move into private session. The next committee meeting will be on Tuesday 9 May when the committee will take opening evidence on the Domestic Abuse Scotland Bill from the Scottish Government Bill Team. I suspend briefly to allow the gallery to clear.