Court / Court relies on mobile loudspeaker and ‘stacks of paper’ due to ongoing internet outage

THE INTERNET outage affecting the Northern Isles disrupted proceedings at Lerwick Sheriff Court on Wednesday.

The lack of internet that connects the video link to prisons on the mainland was not available, with some cases called off.

Defence agents Tommy Allan and Gregor Kelly, both on the Scottish mainland, had to speak to the court via loudspeaker on the clerk’s personal mobile phone instead of the usual video link.

Sheriff Ian Cruickshank opened Wednesday’s proceedings by explaining the situation, adding that the phone line was not available either.

“Our internet connections are affected by the damage to the subsea cable,” he said.

Sheriff Cruickshank said the court would have to “fall back on traditional methods”, highlighting that the procurator fiscal had a “stack of papers” and not an iPad, and the sheriff himself was not able to use his laptop.

Sheriff Cruickshank said the court staff and those in the IT department at Scottish Courts had tried their best to resolve matters.

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However, he said the court would have to rely on a “Heath Robinson solution” to allow contact with defence agents on the mainland.

The sheriff offered an apology to the people present in court as well as the press, saying the communication with agents may be difficult to hear.

But he said using a phone on loudspeaker, going through a microphone in the courtroom, worked slightly better than expected.

However come the end of the session the sheriff said he hoped that “normal service” would be resuming shortly.

Many people in Shetland and Orkney have had not internet since Saturday when a fishing boat is believed to have damaged Shefa-2 cable fibre optic cable off Orkney.

With some people with providers like BT unaffected, Sky, TalkTalk and Vodafone customers are thought to have been the worst affected by the outage.

The repair may only be completed by Sunday or Monday, Shefa managing director Páll Højgaard Vesturbú said earlier this week.

It is the second time in less than three years that damage to a subsea telecoms cable has resulted in outages in Shetland.