The Talking-up Scotland fund raiser primarily to enable the recruitment of some research assistance, in order to take pressure off me [74 in June and tiring] and hopefully to further improve the blog, has made a good start. To contribute, only if you can (!) go to: Talking-up Scotland - a Politics crowdfunding project in Ayr by Professor John Robertson
By Professor John Robertson OBA, former Faculty Research Ethics Chair, UWS
In an extended report on a single rape victim and her understandable, important, concerns, there’s the unchecked, unspecified, claim that conviction rates are ‘low’ and no room for any context somehow. Here is some to help you put things into perspective, maybe give you confidence to go out of the house:
- Five times as many rape cases solved and 3 times as many violence cases solved in Scotland than in England & Wales
In the Guardian 13 January:
Victims are being “let down time and time again” by police, a minister has said, as almost every violent or sexual offence went unsolved in hundreds of Britain’s crime hotspots last year. Nearly 1.9m violent or sexual crimes in England and Wales were closed without a suspect being caught or charged in the year to June 2024 – about 89% of all offences given an outcome, official figures show.
In the ‘Scottish’ Daily Express on 23 October 2024:
Police only solve half of all crimes in SNP’s soft-touch justice Scotland – Police officers in Scotland are solving less crimes than a decade ago with the Scottish Government’s approach to criminal justice blamed by the Scottish Tories. The percentage of non-sexual crimes of violence solved dropped in the last decade from 77% to 68% and for sex crimes it fell by almost 20% from 76.5% to 57.2%. Within this category, only 52.9% of rapes and attempted rapes were solved in 2023-24, down from 74.2% 10 years ago.
https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/police-only-solve-half-crimes-33951541
So, in England and Wales, only 11%, 1 in 10, violent and sexual crimes solved but in Scotland, 32% violent crimes, 3 in 10 and 47%, rapes and attempted rapes, 5 in 10.
I know, I’m comparing all sexual crimes in England and Wales with only rapes and attempted rapes in Scotland but I feel sure the latter are even more difficult to close, thus making the comparison favour England and Wales.
2. Tackling misogyny in Scotland – more police officers dismissed, rape convictions soar, more sensitive approach to domestic abuse calls and Labour hypocrisy
The Herald on February 2, claims:
‘Culture of misogyny’ in Police Scotland sex crime unit – Detectives working in Police Scotland’s rape investigation unit would “frequently” describe female complainers as “slags,” a whistleblower has alleged. In a 30-page statement, submitted to the force’s Professional Standards Department (PSD) in May 2023, and seen by The Herald on Sunday, a senior officer said there was a “culture of misogyny amongst officers, both male and female” in the division responsible for investigating some of Scotland’s worst sexual crimes.
Clearly that should be investigated but the wider public also need to be offered fuller evidence on misogyny in Scotland so that they can judge how to react. That’s not in Herald report, so:
First, Dismissals increase as Police Scotland deal with abuse in the wake of Everard case in England
From a Police Scotland Freedom of Information response on 17 December 2024, we see a steady increase in the force’s readiness to dismiss officers who have abused their position, from only 1 in 2019, to 7, 8 and 11 in the last three years.
This follows Police Scotland action in2021:
A new verification check for lone police officers in Scotland has been introduced in the wake of the murder of Sarah Everard. Police Scotland said it wanted to reassure the public after she was abducted and killed by Metropolitan police officer Wayne Couzens.
Couzens, 48, used his warrant card to abduct Ms Everard from a south London street before raping and murdering her. Members of the public in Scotland can now request a control room check.
Action, doing something but what about in London where these events began? What is the Met doing? Well, nothing yet. From the Times today:
Flashers and perverts remain eligible to join the Metropolitan Police and other forces because of a loophole in vetting. The anomaly means that Wayne Couzens, the officer who raped and murdered Sarah Everard, would probably still have been hired by the Met even if he had been arrested for exposing himself.
Second, in the latest figures for 2022/2023, there has been a 63% increase from 2014, in the number of people proceeded against for rape and attempted rape and a 108% increase in convictions for these.
https://www.gov.scot/news/criminal-proceedings-in-scotland-2022-23/
Third, On the 24 February 2024, Scottish Labour has voted down a motion submitted via its women’s conference which had urged it to “acknowledge the principle of women’s sex-based rights”, despite most Constituency Labour Party delegates and the Scottish Labour women’s conference supporting the motion.
Critics of the motion have hit out at “transphobia” within the party, but supporters said it was “chilling” to see a women’s conference motion voted down. A card vote was held on the floor of the Scottish Labour party conference in Glasgow over the motion this weekend. LabourList can reveal 69.3% of CLP delegates’ votes were for the motion, but votes are weighted equally between CLP delegates and party affiliates.
The motion fell because 77% of affiliate votes were against it, making it the first and only motion to have been rejected by the conference. The party’s affiliate groups include trade unions, socialist societies and equality groups. Multiple sources told LabourList several trade unions voted against the motion.
Fourth, Police Scotland praised for sensitive approach to domestic abuse calls
On BBC Scotland’s Nine, in July 2020, Dr Marsha Scott of Scottish Women’s Aid, spoke of the 95% reported increase in calls during the lock-down and the way it has even further limited the choices available to those being abused. It’s a disturbing aspect of the strategy which further demonstrates the need for Scotland to be able to come out of lock-down as soon as is safely and sustainably possible. There was one positive comment from Dr Scott [47 min] which, of course, should be reported here:
And one of the big things that we found on the helpline was that a really big part of the calls in the initial part of lock-down was just information about, if women decided to leave and could leave, would the police tell them that they had to go back. I mean we heard some stories from England that that might have been the case. And I want to give lots of credit to the Scottish police. That was certainly never the message up here.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000l6gt/the-nine-2307202
Support Scots Independent, Scotland’s oldest pro-independence newspaper and host of the OBA (Oliver Brown Award) at: https://scotsindependent.scot/FWShop/shop/
The Oliver Brown Award for advancing the cause of Scotland’s self respect, previously awarded to Dr Philippa Whitford, Alex Salmond and Sean Connery: https://scotsindependent.scot/?page_id=116
About Oliver Brown, the first Scottish National Party candidate to save his deposit in a Parliamentary election: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Brow
Talking-up Scotland 
Austerity increased knife deaths in London. 200 more a year.
Abused women in Scotland do not get legal aid. Women do not have equal rights. Co habiting women, the majority, have to put in a claim within a year (1/3). Or lose all rights. It can cost £thousands and take years. Abused women often do not have the money. They have to stay in unsafe places because they have no rights or money. Cohesive control and violence. The perpetrators can get away with it. Women have nowhere to go. They do not want to lose the roof over their head. They suffer in silence, without support or government help,
The Law has been changed in the South so women can get legal aid without losing the roof over their head. It has to be paid back in any case.
Rental agencies, illegally, demand 6 months rent and deposit up front. Even from people with good credit rating. Many people do not have access to these sums. So cannot find a place to stay. It can lead to homelessness.
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I just read this https://archive.ph/J7nq5 and was amazed by the certainty of ” …says she will be less protected when he is released from prison later this year than she was before the trial ” despite this being a consideration for the judicial system. She may very well be correct, but it is for judges to rule on the danger and set conditions, not the BBC’s Katie Hunter nor Amelia Price.
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