SENTENCING STATEMENTS

On sentencing the accused on 25 August 2026, Lord Scott said the following:

“Matteullah Siddiqi, you have pled guilty to 4 charges with the most serious charge involving you recruiting a 14-year-old child and directing him to sell drugs for you over a period of over 2 months in 2025, doing this with a view to the child being exploited by being used in the supplying of controlled drugs on your behalf.

You pled guilty also to 2 charges involving being yourself concerned in the supplying of 2 separate class A drugs, namely cocaine and diamorphine or heroin. Lastly, you struggled violently with police officers causing severe injury to one.

Charge 5 is also aggravated by being committed against the child I will continue to refer to as “T”.

All 4 charges are aggravated due to being committed while you were subject, remarkably, to 5 separate bail orders granted by different courts over a period of 18 months, with the last of these imposed on 1 July 2025 for a petition matter, right at the start of the offending on the present indictment.

The court is well aware of the serious and lasting impact that this sort of exploitation can have on a child. Indeed, you too are well aware from prior personal experience as an exploited child of its impact. That is something I will return to when I refer to the JSWR.

In any event, I have now seen the impact statement from your victim, “T”, completed only this month. He describes what happened as mentally traumatic for him and distressing for his family, just as what happened to you distressed yours. He says, “I feel betrayed by an adult I trusted but who lured me into trouble”. He says that how he was directed to act was against his religious beliefs and he didn’t realise the effects at the time. What you did – as the adult he trusted who betrayed him, as he put it – has damaged his confidence and ability to trust and feel free as he now feels at risk. It affected his academic performance and may have set him back as regards higher education and career. Commendably, he hopes that lessons are learned to help to protect children like him from such exploitation in the future.

You are 20-years-old and, at the time, you were 19.  You have several previous convictions and have twice been sentenced to detention. Significantly, you have 3 previous convictions for possession with intent to supply or being concerned in the supplying of class A drugs. Your most recent conviction in the schedule was for being concerned in supplying of drugs and resulted in a sentence of 23 weeks detention.  That was the longest sentence you had served but I have been told about the sentence of 30 months detention and 6 months consecutive imposed while you were on remand for the present case. Those sentences, I am told, expired only 11 days ago. That means that you have been on remand exclusively for the present case for only 14 days.

For a third drug trafficking offence of this nature, the law specifies a minimum sentence of seven years’ detention (s.205B of the 1995 Act). So, by your own decisions over a period of only 2 years, you have placed yourself in the position where 7 years is the minimum period of detention I have to impose, subject to one qualification which I am sure will have been discussed with you by your lawyers. A sentence of 7 years detention

must be imposed subject to possible reduction on a guilty plea to not less than five years 219 days (1995 Act, s.196(2)). So, whatever mitigation was offered on your behalf today, the minimum sentence I am required to impose is a period of 5 years 219 days detention. The question arises as to whether that minimum sentence is adequate to address the serious offending on this indictment. I will come back to that.

Before passing sentence, I asked for a Justice Social Work Report.  This was with a view to finding out more about your background and any other relevant information, as well as any risk you pose to the public.

Just as the agreed narrative informed me that your child victim was assessed by the National Referral Mechanism to be a victim of exploitation, the report explains that the same assessment was made in your case in 2023, that is that you were also the victim of child trafficking and exploitation, being involved in drug supply on behalf of others. The report notes that you failed to engage in the assessment process or with services at that time. Regrettably, you failed to take that opportunity to try to escape from the gang which had enlisted you and appears to have continued to threaten and assault you.

The report says that you tried on several occasions to leave the gang but this was met with violence.

In the report, in effect, you deny charge 5, the charge of exploiting “T”, claiming instead that you and “T” were both recruited to sell drugs and that you were directed to act as a middleman between your handler and your child victim.

You claim that you supplied drugs due to threat, violence, drug use and debt.

You deny charge 8, claiming that the officer sustained only a scraped knee, whereas the agreed narrative informs me that he sustained a tear to the AC ligament of his right shoulder and a tear to his rotator cuff.

Consequently, you take limited responsibility for your offending, deflecting, minimising and denying the full extent of your involvement. You have demonstrated limited insight and victim empathy, despite having been in a similar position yourself. You focus on yourself as a victim, rather than the child you recruited. You have shown no meaningful remorse.

You must understand that I will proceed to sentence on the basis of the agreed narrative and not the self-serving version of mostly denial which you have offered in the report.

In addition to failing to engage with the relevant authorities who wanted to help you to escape from the clutches of those who had exploited you, you have failed to fully grasp several opportunities given to you by the courts when imposing community based sentences for serious offending. Whatever pressures you have been under, and some of them sound serious, as a matter of law you have continued to make choices and decisions to continue to offend.

All of this is despite the fact that you come from a supportive but law-abiding family. I have read the letter of support from your father who has tried to highlight some of the threat and violence experienced by you and your family. He worries that the court might deal with your case without having the full picture. I take what he has said into account, indeed it chimes with much of what is said in the JSWR, although I worry that he is also unaware of the full picture of your offending, including your lack of engagement with relevant authorities and community sentences.

There are signs that your abuse of drugs has continued while you have been in custody. It seems likely that, without accepting some of the support available in custody, your drug use and associated offending may well continue.

You have accepted responsibility for your actions, albeit with the minimisation and denial I have mentioned, and have acted on this acceptance with a plea of guilty.  Today, Mr Hiller has emphasised your acceptance of guilt, your young age and previously having been a victim in similar circumstances. He has said everything that can be said on your behalf.

In summary, I have considered all that is said in the Justice Social Work Report and all that has been said today on your behalf by your counsel. 

I must and will recognise the timing of your offer to plead guilty.  This allows me to reduce the headline sentence or starting point because of what is referred to in court as the utilitarian value of your plea, that is primarily the saving of court time although a plea of guilty has other benefits too.  It is the main aspect of mitigation in the case, albeit I note that it came only 8 months after you first appeared and therefore not as early as in many other cases.  I must also have regard to the minimum sentence required as a matter of law. In the circumstances, I consider that a reduction of 20% is appropriate.

Having reflected carefully on all of the circumstances, in particular the serious and premeditated nature of the charge, the established behaviour at the time and the insights in the justice social work report, in my judgement the normal period of licence would not be enough to protect the public from serious harm from you.  The report assesses you presently as having high risk of criminogenic risk / needs factors Accordingly, I consider that the custodial sentence in your case should be by way of an extended sentence.

The charges you have pled guilty to are extremely serious, individually and, especially, taken together.

Charges 5, 6 and 7 carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

Charge 8 carries a maximum sentence of 12 months imprisonment.

The main consideration in sentencing is the serious harm caused by your actions in what was clearly a persistent supply of drugs, including, most seriously, by use of a vulnerable child exploited by you.  Harm is extremely high and, while culpability or blame is reduced to some extent by your age and previous exploitation as a victim yourself, it is still high, not least because you of all people should know better than to actively enlist and direct other children and you have failed to take several opportunities to push away from offending.

As you are 20, the Guideline for Sentencing Young People is relevant.  This Guideline has received some publicity and is not always well understood.  It was issued and approved by the Court only after wide consultation and was based on significant international evidence about the development of the young mind and issues often relevant to those under 25 regarding maturity, poor judgment and succumbing to negative peer influences as well as capacity for change.  It appears to me that some of these issues may be relevant in your case.  

Rehabilitation is emphasised in the Guideline although this can happen in a number of ways and does not necessarily mean that custody can be avoided, especially where, as here, a charge is very serious.

The Guideline states that I should:

‘have regard to the fact that some sentences could have more of an adverse effect on a young person than on an older person because of the young person’s age, maturity, and/or personal circumstances’.

The Sentencing Guideline concludes:

‘The full range of sentencing options remains open to the court.  However, the nature and duration of a sentence imposed on a young person should be different from that which might be imposed on an older person being sentenced for the same, or a similar, offence.’ and

‘A custodial sentence should only be imposed on a young person when the court is satisfied that no other sentence is appropriate.  If a custodial sentence is imposed on a young person, it should be shorter than that which would have been imposed on an older person for the same, or a similar, offence.’

Having regard to the whole circumstances of the case, only a custodial sentence is appropriate.  It is necessary to punish you and to seek to deter you and others from behaving in this way and to protect the public from you.  

I must and will recognise the timing of your offer to plead guilty.  This allows me to reduce the headline sentence or starting point because of what is referred to in court as the utilitarian value of your plea, that is primarily the saving of court time although a plea of guilty has other benefits too.  It is a significant aspect of mitigation in the case, albeit I note that it came 10 months after you were remanded in custody on a second petition. Your offer to plead guilty was therefore not as early as in many other cases.  In the circumstances, I consider that a reduction of 20% is appropriate.

In all the circumstances, I impose a cumulo extended sentence of 8 years 9 months, that is a single sentence for all charges.  The length of the custodial term of that extended sentence is 6 years 9 months with an extension period of 2 years for the duration of which you will be under licence on conditions fixed by the Scottish Ministers.  If, during this extension period, you fail to comply with the conditions of your licence it may be revoked by the Scottish Ministers and you may be returned to custody for a further period.

The custodial term is less than the 7-year minimum sentence indicated in law but greater by a little over 1 year than the minimum custodial term required by law if maximum recognition were given for the plea of guilty.

If you had been convicted of these charges after trial, the cumulo custodial term would have been 8 years 6 months. That starting point or headline sentence is greater by 6 months for the 5 bail aggravations but I have not increased it for the aggravation of involving a child as that is an intrinsic part of the offence in this case and should not be double counted. For 5 bail aggravations, including one for a petition matter at the start of this serious offending, I am sure that Mr Hiller will tell you that more than 6 months could have been added to the headline sentence.

Considered individually, the relevant custodial terms would have been:

Charge 5 – 7 years 6 months

Charge 6 – 5 years 219 days

Charge 7 – 5 years 219 days

Charge 8 – 12 months

The sentence will date from 11 August 2026 to take account of the 14 days you spent on remand. I could have made the sentence consecutive to your present sentence but have decided not to do so.

I have been asked to make a Trafficking and Exploitation Order in view of your conviction on charge 5.  Having read the application and the response prepared on your behalf, I will make such an order.  This order is intended to address future risk. The conditions are outlined in the application and will apply for a period of 5 years.”

25 August 2026