SENTENCING STATEMENTS
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HMA v Jamie Docherty
Mar 19, 2026
On sentencing, Lord Arthurson made the following remarks in court:
"Jamie Docherty, you have this morning tendered pleas of guilty to a three charge section 76 indictment, libelling two charges related to separate contraventions of section 38(1) of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010, and one charge of assaulting a female police officer in a hospital setting, all to her injury and to the danger of her life. Each of these charges is aggravated in respect of two bail orders.
This offending occurred at Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, Glasgow, on 13 August 2025, commencing at approximately 9am and taking place outside and then within the Minor Injuries Unit at the Accident and Emergency Department. The whole incident, as it unfolded, has been set out already in the agreed narrative of facts. I do not propose to rehearse that. This case comes to the High Court by virtue of charge two. You threatened to kill and to stab your victim, a serving police officer who was acting in the course of her duties. You repeatedly struck her to the face with a blunt object. While she was on the ground, you stomped twice on her forehead area, across her eyes, while continuing to shout that you were going to kill her. You then repeatedly kicked your victim on the head. You then accosted a hospital employee, produced a lighter and demanded that he assist you to leave the premises. You then pressed a mobile phone into the same police officer’s neck area and told her that it was a taser and that you were going to taser her. The police officer sustained injury by way of laceration, bruising, contusion and abrasion. She has still not returned to work.
I have listened carefully to the submissions advanced in mitigation this morning on your behalf. I note in particular what has been said by your counsel in respect of the timing and utility of your guilty pleas; your family circumstances; the background to your commission of this offending; and your present intention to make a fresh start on your release from custody.
You are now aged 34. You have to date accrued some 26 groups of previous convictions and served 11 custodial sentences. Three of your earlier convictions were at sheriff and jury level, and one, in 2018, at High Court level, was related to the crime of assault to injury and robbery.
Having regard to the gravity of the offending before the court, and in particular your appalling criminal conduct towards a serving police officer carrying out her duties during day-time hours at a busy accident and emergency department, and to your analogous history of violent offending on indictment, it is clear that a substantial custodial disposal is inevitable in this case. You repeatedly stomped on and kicked your victim’s head. You threatened to stab her and pressed an item which you said was a taser into her neck and told her that you would taser her. Your assault upon her was sustained, exceptionally violent, and was to the danger of her life. The court will continue to regard such deplorable attacks upon police officers as offending of the utmost gravity, and will consequently deal with the perpetrators of such crimes with considerable severity. The location and timing of your criminal behaviour in this case are, of course, further significant aggravators.
In respect of this indictment, I now therefore sentence you as follows. On charge one you will be admonished and dismissed. On charge three you will serve a sentence of 12 months imprisonment, discounted on the basis of the timing and utility of your early plea from a notional headline period of 18 months, with 3 months of that headline period being attributed to the libelled bail aggravations. Concurrent with that sentence, you will on the principal charge, charge two, serve a sentence of 5 years imprisonment, discounted on the basis of the timing and utility of your guilty plea from a notional headline period of 7 years, with 6 months of that headline period being attributed to the libelled bail aggravations. For the avoidance of doubt, these sentences are being imposed on a concurrent basis having regard to the sequencing of events and to the important sentencing principle of totality.
Taking a broad approach to matters of backdating, I confirm that these sentences will each be backdated to the date of your initial remand into custody in these proceedings, namely to 14 August 2025."
19 March 2026