In Scotland the Royal Mail could not do private prosecutions and instead only did prosecutions via the regular public bodies - the procuratoer fiscal. So if the private prosecutions were themselves an aggravating factor, we'd surely expect to see a significantly lower rate of prosecutions in Scotland than in England? And the same goes for Northern Ireland
The data that I can see shows that 76 subpostmasters were prosecuted in Scotland which doesn't seem completely wacky out of line with the rest of the UK.
76 as a fraction of potentially over 900 nationally is disproportionately small, though I don't know whether there are disproportionately fewer sub postmasters in Scotland.
Do we know how many Scottish prosecutions did not go forward with the fiscal?
The fundamental issue here is that it is likely that the Post Office on the one hand knew of the problems with the code and on the other still continued its prosecutions (based on its longstanding reputation). The fact that in England and Wales they could get away with that without systematic scrutiny surely only sways the chances of cases succeeding elsewhere. There was evidence from Horizon identifying the frauds, after all, and they had been successfully prosecuted.
Scotland is 8% of the UK’s population. 8% of 900 is 72, so it seems exactly in line to me - as though public vs private prosecution made zero difference to the likelihood of prosecution.
Given the serious concerns raised about these specific private prosecutions by the House of Commons, perhaps there should be concerns about the legal system in Scotland then ;-)
The data that I can see shows that 76 subpostmasters were prosecuted in Scotland which doesn't seem completely wacky out of line with the rest of the UK.