By Professor John Robertson OBA, former Faculty Research Ethics Chair, UWS

From STV today:

Police in Scotland are being placed under “stress”, and public perception of them is changing due to officers in England such as the killer Wayne Couzens, the leader of the Scottish Police Federation has said. David Kennedy said claims by the force’s former chief constable that Police Scotland is institutionally racist and sexist also had a “negative impact” on officers.

Mr Kennedy told a fringe event at the Scottish Labour conference that officers had the “relentless task” of dealing with the “constant barrage of issues” stemming from forces south of the border. The SPF leader, whose organisation represents 99% of the nation’s officers, cited the case of Couzens, the Met officer who raped and murdered Sarah Everard, as well as serial rapist David Carrick, also from the Met in London. https://news.stv.tv/scotland/criminal-officers-in-england-having-negative-impact-on-police-scotland-staff

What evidence is there that Police Scotland does better?

In 2020, on Reporting Scotland (!):

Meanwhile, the chair of the Independent committee scrutinising the way the police have implemented lockdown has told MSPs it’s given the idea of policing by consent ‘fresh life’ and he praised the police for setting up scrutiny of their actions themselves. He told a virtual meeting of Holyrood’s Policing Sub-Committee it was a healthy sign that the committee had been set up by the national force.

But, then the independent advisory committee chair, John Scott QC tells us:

I’ve been in touch with colleagues in the human rights field in other countries and it appears that Scotland is ahead of the game here in terms of having a human-rights-based scrutiny of these emergency powers. I’ve spoken to colleagues in England and Northern Ireland and now moving further afield as well. So I think it’s an extremely healthy sign that the initiative for this group came from within Police Scotland.

And, on BBC Scotland’s Nine (!) Dr Marsha Scott of Scottish Women’s Aid:

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.

And in 2021:

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.https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-58776349

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.https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rethink-vetting-loophole-that-lets-sex-perverts-join-the-police-kj0wvx0jh

And those claim by the force’s former chief constable that Police Scotland is institutionally racist and sexist?

Now I know BBC Scotland staff are desperate to tell Scots that things are bad in SNP Scotland too, but for some actual facts on policing, try these:

Police Scotland recognised globally but not in Westminster

Trust in Police Scotland more than twice that in the Met but Labour and Tory MPs go to US for ideas!

Also https://www.thenational.scot/politics/23389766.allan-dorans-media-generalises-scotland-uk-figures/

Maybe this is insensitive but sexual assaults by police officers across the UK are 35% more common than in Scotland

In the wake of Sarah Everard, Police Scotland acts, the Met doesn’t but it’s not good enough Scotland

Police Scotland ‘ahead of the game’ in human rights-based approach to implementing lockdown.