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Ciaran Williamson FAI

Sheriff Ruxton has issued their determination into the death of Ciaran Williamson following an accident at Craigton Cemetery.

During the course of this FAI,  in their submissions to the Sheriff both the Crown and Glasgow City Council, “GCC” argued that Sheriff Ruxton should make no findings in relation to;- (a) reasonable precautions that might have resulted in Ciaran’s death being avoided, (b) defects in any system of work which contributed to his death, and (c) that after Ciaran’s death, GCC had developed appropriate policies and their staff have been trained to carry out appropriate inspections of gravestones and memorials under their care and control.

The approach of the Crown and GCC to this Inquiry was challenged by Counsel on behalf of the bereaved family, Dorothy R Bain QC and today Sheriff Ruxton’s determination was issued.

Contrary to the position adopted by the Crown and GCC,  Sheriff Ruxton made a number of significant determinations identifying, (a) reasonable precautions where by Ciaran’s death might have been avoided, (b) defects in GCC system of working in relation to the safety of gravestones and memorials , (c) recommended that the Scottish Government  issue guidance on gravestone and memorial safety and (d), recommended that GCC reconsider their most recent guidance issued in 2015.

In summary Sheriff Ruxton determined:

(a) The reasonable precautions, if any, whereby the death and the accident resulting in the death might have been avoided:

  1. The carrying out of repairs to the perimeter wall at Craigton Cemetery so that the convenient but unauthorised access point opposite the flats where Ciaran lived was sealed was a reasonable precaution whereby Ciaran’s death and the accident resulting in his death might have been avoided.
  2. A routine inspection of the Ross memorial incorporating the application of a hand test at various heights including at the height of the pediment in order to detect concerning movement would have been a reasonable precaution whereby Ciaran’s death and the accident which resulted in his death might have been avoided.

(b) The defects, if any, in an system of working which contributed to the death or any accident resulting in the death.

The absence of an active system of inspection to ensure the safety and stability of memorials in Glasgow cemeteries and, in particular, in Craigton Cemetery was a defect in Glasgow City Council’s system of working which contributed to Ciaran’s death and the accident resulting in his death.

(c) Any other facts which are relevant to the circumstances of the death:

  1. There was confusion as to the proper interpretation of industry guidance on safety management within cemeteries and the methods of inspection of memorials to determine their stability and safety. The available guidance is unclear on a number of aspects including the appropriate test to be applied to large, heavy monuments such as the Ross memorial and the circumstances in which it is appropriate to apply the industry-recognised 25 kilogramme pressure test.
  2. Large, heavy, multi-part memorials such as the Ross memorial present particular dangers to the public when they begin to shift from vertical and lean towards the ground. There is a lack of clear advice to local authorities on how to test these moving structures.
  3. There is an absence of Scottish guidance on safe cemetery management with particular reference to memorial safety. These are matters which have significant implications for the safety of the public who visit cemeteries and all who work there.

Recommendations Sheriff Ruxton recommended:

  1. That the Scottish Government issue separate guidance on memorial safety in cemeteries for use by local authorities throughout Scotland. Such guidance should include a category of advice on how to inspect large, traditional monuments such as the Ross memorial, as distinct from lawn memorials and other smaller structures. Given the potential danger posed by large leaning memorials, these should be given special attention and clear guidance issued as to the procedures for testing their safety and stability in order to assess whether there is concerning movement associated with such structures.
  2. That Glasgow City Council reconsider their recent 2015 guidance on memorial inspection to take account of the issues raised in this Inquiry. 3. That consideration be given by the relevant agencies and associations that the existing industry guidance on memorial safety and stability testing be re-visited with a view to producing separate guidance on the inspection of traditional memorials and, in particular, those whose centres of gravity are shifting from the vertical.

The full Determination can be found on the Scottish Courts & Tribunal Service website here.

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Kathryn Ferguson

Kathryn Ferguson joined Ampersand in 2018 and has completed Paralegal qualifications in both Conveyancing and Wills and Executries. Prior to joining the team Kathryn worked for a global law firm supporting the Commercial Real Estate and Litigation teams.

Kathryn brings a can-do approach and is always willing to assist in all aspects of instructing counsel.

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Determination issued in Joint FAI of Snowman Rally and Jim Clark Rally

Sheriff Kenneth Maciver QC has issued his determination in the Joint FAI of Snowman Rally and Jim Clark Rally

The Sheriff’s determination in the Fatal Accident Inquiry into the deaths which occurred at two Scottish motor racing rallies has been published. Evidence was led over several weeks at Edinburgh Sheriff Court between July and the end of September 2017 as to the circumstances of a fatality which occurred during the Snowman Rally near Inverness in 2013 and of a further three fatalities which occurred during the Jim Clark Rally in the Scottish Borders in 2014. The FAI was the first ever joint Fatal Accident Inquiry into two separate fatal accidents and examined issues relative to the organisation and management of motor sport rallies, in particular in relation to safety of spectators and members of the public. Ampersand’s Simon Bowie QC acted on behalf of Russel Blood, clerk of the course for JCR 2014 and event director of the Jim Clark Memorial Motor Club Ltd

The Determination can be found here.

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Determination by Sheriff Kenneth Maciver QC re Joint FAI of Snowman Rally and Jim Clark Rally

The Sheriff’s determination in the Fatal Accident Inquiry into the deaths which occurred at two Scottish motor racing rallies has been published. Evidence was led over several weeks at Edinburgh Sheriff Court between July and the end of September 2017 as to the circumstances of a fatality which occurred during the Snowman Rally near Inverness in 2013 and of a further three fatalities which occurred during the Jim Clark Rally in the Scottish Borders in 2014. The FAI was the first ever joint Fatal Accident Inquiry into two separate fatal accidents and examined issues relative to the organisation and management of motor sport rallies, in particular in relation to safety of spectators and members of the public. Ampersand’s Simon Bowie QC acted on behalf of Russel Blood, clerk of the course for JCR 2014 and event director of the Jim Clark Memorial Motor Club Ltd

The Determination can be found here.

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Usman Tariq KC

Usman Tariq KC has extensive experience of high-value and complex commercial disputes and public law litigation. He is described in the Chambers & Partners UK Bar Guide as being “universally respected at the Bar, including by opponents and the judiciary” and a “very highly regarded practitioner” who has “the ear of the court” and is “very popular with the judiciary”. His core areas of practice include contractual, intellectual property, information technology, insolvency and professional negligence disputes. He has acted in some of the largest financial claims ever in the Scottish courts as well as in most of the reported intellectual property cases over the past decade in Scotland. He also specialises in administrative and public law where he has acted for and advised both Scottish and UK governments, including on issues as varied as devolution, tax and environmental impact assessments. He has appeared at all levels of the Scottish court system, including the UK Supreme Court. He also has experience of alternative dispute resolution having acted as counsel in mediations and arbitrations as well as the arbitrator in commercial disputes.

The breadth of his experience and expertise is recognised in the Chambers & Partners UK Bar Guide 2026 in which he is ranked as a leading individual in eight practice areas, the highest number of individual rankings for any advocate at the Scottish Bar. He is ranked as a leading senior counsel in the following eight practice areas in the current Chambers UK Bar Guide: (i) commercial dispute resolution; (ii) intellectual property; (iii) information technology; (iv) media law; (v) restructuring / insolvency; (vi) professional negligence; (vii) administrative and public law; and (viii) civil liberties and human rights. He is also ranked in the Legal 500 Guide 2026 for (i) commercial litigation; (ii) administrative and public law; and (iii) crime and regulatory. He also has experience in developing areas of law, including EU and UK sanctions law, and in relation to new technologies, such as cryptocurrencies. In 2025, he gave evidence to the Scottish Parliament on behalf of the Faculty of Advocates in relation to the Digital Assets (Scotland) Bill. As junior counsel, he was recognised as Advocate of the Year at the Law Awards of Scotland 2017 and the Legal 500’s Junior Counsel of the Year at the Scottish Bar at the Legal 500 UK Awards 2019.

Comments in the Chambers UK Bar Guide 2026 include “Usman Tariq has an extraordinary combination of commercial awareness, pragmatism and legal ability”; “Usman is a standout. He is really bright, analytical and unbelievably calm”; “Usman is exceptionally good with clients”; “Usman is involved in all the big cases. He is great. The judges really like him; he knows how to appeal to the ear of the court. He’s really well prepared and you know the judges listen to him”; and “Usman is exceptionally talented”.

He is highly respected within the profession which has led to him holding a large number of professional and public appointments as well as leadership roles. He was appointed as counsel to the UK Covid-19 Public Inquiry chaired by Baroness Heather Hallett for three years. He was a member of the legal team investigating core political and administrative governance and decision-making in relation to the pandemic. He was also a Standing Junior counsel to the UK Government in Scotland for nine years and latterly served as Second Standing Junior to the Advocate General for Scotland before his appointment as silk. He has served as a full-time Advocate Depute at the Crown Office prosecuting serious crime between 2021 and 2022. He is the Chair of JUSTICE Scotland, a cross-party law reform charity that works to reform the justice system across the UK. He is appointed by the Lord President as the advocate member of the Scottish Civil Justice Council, the statutory body responsible for keeping the civil justice system in Scotland under review and making recommendations on developments and changes to the justice system.

He is passionate about improving inclusion in the legal profession in Scotland. In 2017, he co-founded the Scottish Ethnic Minority Lawyers Association (SEMLA). SEMLA aims to improve ethnic diversity in the legal profession in Scotland. The group is supported by the Law Society of Scotland and the Faculty of Advocates. SEMLA has collaborated with some of the largest law firms and organisations across the UK on events and work placements for law students from ethnic minority backgrounds. In 2021, he was appointed to the Law Society of Scotland’s Racial Inclusion Group which undertook a systematic review of racial inclusion in the profession and produced a report with recommendations. In 2023, he was appointed to the Scottish Government’s Future of the Legal Profession short-life working group. The purpose of this group is to examine the evidence and propose improvements to address the challenges of recruitment and retention in the profession and to provide support for the planning, collaboration and improvement of legal services in Scotland.

He is an alumnus of the U.S. Department of State’s International Visitors Leadership Program (IVLP). The IVLP is the U.S. Department of State’s premier professional exchange programme in which emerging foreign leaders in a variety of fields are invited to the U.S. to meet with professional counterparts and cultivate lasting relationships. In 2022, he spent time in Washington D.C., San Francisco, Portland and Montana meeting with various federal and state governmental bodies, NGOs and stakeholders in a human rights project on Advancing Minority Rights in Europe.

He is a member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh’s Young Academy of Scotland (YAS) and the RSE’s Justice Leaders Network. YAS brings together young professionals from all sectors to work together on projects that benefit Scotland and the world.

He called to the Bar as the Faculty’s Lord Reid scholar for 2010/2011. This scholarship is awarded annually to the outstanding candidate to the Bar. He is a graduate of the University of Glasgow and the University of Cambridge.

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Una Doherty KC

Una Doherty KC has been ranked in many editions of the Legal 500 UK Bar Directory for Personal Injury and Medical Negligence. At the Legal 500 Scotland Awards 2024 held in November 2024 she was named Silk of the Year.

She has also been ranked for clinical negligence in many editions of Chambers UK Bar Guide.

Una has also been ranked as a Leading Silk in Crime and Regulatory in the 2025 edition of the Legal 500 UK Bar Directory.

She has also been ranked as a Leading Silk in Administrative and Public Law in the 2024 edition of the Legal 500 Bar Directory.

Una has a varied civil practice which covers a range of reparation disputes, although her main areas of practice are in personal injury and clinical negligence claims. She is instructed both for pursuers and for defenders and acts for clients ranging from individual litigants to insurers and public bodies. She is regularly instructed by the NHS Central Legal Office. She has extensive experience of high value personal injury claims including those involving catastrophic brain injuries. In the area of clinical negligence, she regularly acts in multi-million pound claims, including cerebral palsy cases. She is currently instructed in the UK and Scottish Covid-19 Inquiries, and the Scottish Hospitals Inquiry, representing NHS National Services Scotland. In 2023, Una was leading counsel for the respondent, and presented the oral submissions in the Supreme Court, in McCulloch and others (Appellants) v Forth Valley Health Board (Respondent) [2023] UKSC 26. During the hearing, the Court described this as the most important clinical negligence appeal in years. The Court refused the appeal.

She was an Ad Hoc Advocate Depute from 2013 to 2023, and in that role prosecuted criminal cases in the High Court.

She was a Legal Assessor to the General Teaching Council of Scotland from 2017 to 2021, advising panels on questions of law and procedure in Fitness to Teach proceedings.

In 2017, she completed an International Arbitration Law course, and was a member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators from 2017 to 2021.

Una took silk in 2018.

In 2020, Una qualified as a mediator.

In 2021, Una was appointed as a Legally Qualified Chair by the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC). In that role Una chairs panels with social service and lay members to decide whether workers’ fitness to practise is impaired.

Recent selected cases:

Confidentiality prohibits the details of the numerous claims which have settled without recourse to the courts or in the course of proof.

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