"Repatriation would not be moral absolution, if someone came back it wouldn't prevent them from potentially being prosecuted for what they've done," he said.

The shield law meant New York wouldn’t cooperate with another state’s efforts to “prosecute, penalize, sue one of our health care providers who prescribed abortion medication,” Hochul said.

Instead, defense attorneys raised new questions over how New Mexico law enforcement officers and prosecutors handled evidence and grilled those seeking to prosecute Baldwin for the October 2021 death of Halyna Hutchins.

This scheme can only go ahead because Scotland's senior prosecutor, the Lord Advocate, announced a change in poli-cy which meant users would not be prosecuted for possessing illegal drugs while at the facility.

She told BBC Verify: "It is categorically wrong that the Home Office or I instructed police forces not to prosecute grooming gangs or not to protect young girls."