Latest news with #RapeCrisisScotland
Glasgow Times
03-06-2025
- Glasgow Times
Glasgow police dealing with hundreds of rapes and sex crimes
Officers from the rape and domestic abuse unit in the city are dealing with 584 live cases, it has been revealed. With just four Senior Investigating Officers, who are Detective Inspectors, police officers' representatives have said it is not sustainable and is taking its toll on the staff. READ NEXT: Keir Starmer pledges to raise defence spending but won't rule out other cuts The figures are reported in the latest edition of 1919 police magazine. David Kennedy, Scottish Police Federation general secretary, said: 'The service is breaking them and some of those officers are broken. 'We can't continue to have a police service that does more with less. 'We are spinning workloads like spinning plates and that ultimately only ends one way.' The magazine revealed the details obtained under freedom of information. It reported police sources stating the highest number of cases handled by one SIO was 176. The source said: 'Figures show around 70% of all High Court trials relate to sexual offences and yet the resources Police Scotland put into investigating rape are a fraction of the overall investigative resources they've got'. READ NEXT: Inspections at 7 Glasgow homeless hotels reveal 'defects and issues' 'The force would rather spend money on the organised crime side of the business. 'It's a massive issue that officers working in sexual offences investigation have been flagging up for years. It is significantly under-resourced.' The total number of cases recorded by Police Scotland between April and September last year was 1400, 19.5% higher than the 850 in the same period the previous year. Sandy Brindley, Rape Crisis Scotland chief executive, said: 'Despite a rise in the number of reported rapes in Scotland, support for survivors remains desperately under-resourced and under-funded. 'We know that from our own work, but these figures are a stark reminder of how this extends to policing too. 'One senior officer, no matter how skilled they are, cannot possibly oversee 176 live rape investigations properly. READ NEXT: 10 firms in the Glasgow area named for not paying National Minimum Wage Steve Johnson, Police Scotland Assistant Chief Constable, said: 'The significant increase in reporting of rape and sexual crime indicates a growing confidence in victims to come forward knowing they will be listened to, supported and that their case will be fully investigated. 'Work is ongoing across the organisation to support our vision of policing, which includes strengthening the frontline and ensuring we have the right people in the right places to meet this increased demand. 'We are also reviewing the workloads of SIOs nationally to develop an approach which ensures every report receives the best investigation and that SIOs are supported in dealing with the increase in demand. 'Senior Investigating Officers provide oversight to large teams of specialist detectives who carry out a range of different roles as part of these detailed investigations. 'Preventing rape and sexual crime is our ultimate goal and we work closely with a range of partners and across communities to tackle violence against women and girls.'
The Guardian
02-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Scottish ministers drop plans to outlaw misogyny and conversion practices
The Scottish government has dropped plans to outlaw misogyny and conversion practices before the next Holyrood election, arguing they are too legally complex to deliver in time. Ministers had long promised a bill to criminalise misogyny after Nicola Sturgeon, the then first minister, accepted recommendations from a working group led by the lawyer and human rights expert Helena Kennedy in 2022. Lady Kennedy said a standalone bill was essential because of the seriousness and complexity of the issue, which spanned sexual violence, hatred, gender-based threats of violence online and 'incel' culture. Jamie Hepburn, the minister for parliamentary business, said on Friday the Scottish government would instead insert anti-misogyny measures into Scotland's Hate Crime and Public Order Act via secondary legislation – an approach Kennedy said in 2022 failed to grasp the significance of the issue. Women's rights campaigners said this was 'devastating news' but Hepburn said the recent UK supreme court decision on the definition of woman had added to the legal challenges. 'This is a complex area of policy and law, and it would be necessary that any bill which brought misogyny into criminal law contained clear and unambiguous provisions in regard to the circumstances in which they apply,' he told MSPs. Sandy Brindley, the chief executive of Rape Crisis Scotland, said those issues should have been resolved by now. 'At a time when women and girls are facing unprecedented levels of misogyny, it's unbelievable that the government is dropping this landmark bill.' Hepburn also confirmed the devolved government had scrapped its plans to ban conversion practices via stand-alone Scottish legislation, dropping another of Sturgeon's pledges when she struck a power-sharing agreement with the Scottish Green party in 2021. Instead, the Scottish National party government has deferred to the UK government, and will work with UK ministers on agreeing Westminster-led legislation that would include Scottish measures. Kaukab Stewart, the equalities minister, said if those talks failed or were not trans-inclusive, then ministers in Edinburgh would consider introducing their own bill after next year's Holyrood elections. Both decisions signalled another significant shift by the Scottish government under John Swinney's leadership away from Sturgeon's rights-focused policy agenda, as the SNP drifts towards safer, centrist territory. Campaigners against conversion practices reacted furiously. 'This is the latest in a growing list of betrayals for LGBTQ+ Scots from this Scottish government. Scotland could have banned conversion therapy years ago,' said a spokesperson for End Conversion Therapy Scotland. 'LGBTQ+ rights are under attack right now, in a way we haven't seen since Thatcher's section 28 ban on 'promoting homosexuality'. Queer people are crying out for some solidarity from politicians. Instead, this news is a stab in the back.' Stewart said: 'Scotland remains absolute in our commitment to equality, the rights of the LGBTQI+ community, and ending conversion practices. 'These recent weeks have been challenging for our LGBTQI+ communities and we want you to know we stand with you and we will work tirelessly to ban conversion practices once and for all.' Kennedy argued that hate crime legislation was the wrong vehicle for misogyny criminalisation because women were not a minority group, which hate crime protections were designed for. 'Misogyny is so deeply rooted in our patriarchal ecosystem that it requires a more fundamental set of responses,' the working group report concluded. The police and courts needed much clearer legislation, centred on women, to guide them, it said.
Scotsman
27-04-2025
- Scotsman
Chapman's outburst was dangerous, Donald Trump-ish nonsense
'I have no doubt that Chapman believes herself to be on the side of the angels but the reality is that she's an enabler of angry men' Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... I'm 12 years old, walking through the snow in Star Wars slippers, pyjama trousers and a man's sports jacket that I can wrap around myself twice. It's around 3am and I don't know which emotion is stronger – fear or shame. Maggie Chapman. (Photo by Jeff) I'm terrified my father, who's clattered off the wagon again, will get in the Sierra and come after us and I'm ashamed the happy family life I want my friends to believe I enjoy is a fabrication. What if someone I know happens to wake, look out of the window, and see us shivering in the street? As is usual, things have built to a head fairly swiftly. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad After weeks of sobriety, he comes home late from work one night, glassy-eyed and reeking of rum and mints. Over the following days, he digs himself deeper back into the hole, drinking more, loathing himself more, getting angrier. On the night he explodes, my mother shakes me awake and we leave in a hurry. She grabs one of his jackets from the hook in the kitchen as we spill out through the back door. We head to the phone box outside the neighbourhood shops then walk towards the main road, where a friend of mum's will pick us up. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Later, in the attic room of a strange house, I lay the jacket I've been wearing on the floor, hawk up as much as I can and spit on it. I do this over and over. It'll have dried by the time he gets it back but it's something. We were lucky. Things could have been a great deal worse. There was always someone who'd come to get us. There was always a safe place to go. Countless families don't have an accessible escape route. Over the decades since I was wandering through the snow in my jim-jams, I've met a lot of people with similar and, often, far worse stories to tell. And I've met a lot of extraordinary people – predominantly women – who work in the field of tackling domestic violence. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad I've also encountered more than my fair share of 'do-gooders' for whom work in this area is guided by personal belief systems that don't always marry up with their missions. These people have always existed but the social media age has more fully exposed the ideologues who perform compassion, even though the consequences of their actions can be devastatingly harmful. Last year, the chief executive of Rape Crisis Scotland, Sandy Brindley, shrugged off the damage she had caused by endorsing and supporting the appointment of trans-identifying Mridul Wadhwa as chief executive of the Edinburgh Rape Crisis centre. When Wadhwa stepped down from that role after a tribunal found they'd led a witch-hunt against a counsellor who believed female victims should be able to attend support services from which men were excluded, Brindley painted herself the victim of terrible unfairness. Didn't people understand that, since she was good and caring, all of her actions were beyond reproach? Green MSP Maggie Chapman has much in common with Brindley. Both are privileged, middle-class women with power. And both are in thrall to ideologues whose professed kindness cannot begin to conceal the danger they pose. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Chapman is an Alpha crank. Not only does she hold bizarre views about sex and gender – once, when challenged on her view that sex is not immutable, she replied that 'very few of us know what our chromosomal make-up is' – she has the power to wreak real damage. As deputy convenor of the Scottish Parliament's equalities committee, she was complicit in a recklessly one-sided 'consultation' on gender reform which saw the magical thinking of government-funded lobby groups preferred over the real-life experience of feminist campaigners. After the recent Supreme Court Court ruling that a gender recognition certificate does not change someone's biological sex, Chapman's reaction was grimly predictable. Last weekend, she joined a protest in Aberdeen where unhinged activists ranted about their intention to ignore the law. They would continue to use whichever facilities they chose, regardless of the fear their presence in single-sex women's spaces causes. Chapman's contribution to the event was a moon-howling speech during which she lashed out at the 'bigotry, prejudice and hatred… coming from the Supreme Court and from so many other institutions in our society'. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad This reckless intervention led the Faculty of Advocates to issue a deeply critical statement. Chapman's words were, they said, 'not compatible' with her role on the equalities committee. There will now be a vote among committee members over whether she should be allowed to retain such a sensitive role. I think it's perfectly clear she should not. Her outburst was dangerous, Donald Trump-ish nonsense. My commitment to the principles of free speech stops at permitting someone to shout 'fire' in a crowded theatre where no such fire exists. That's what Chapman did last weekend. Her accusation was both false and dangerous. During a series of interviews last week, the MSP refused to apologise or back down. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad I have no doubt that Chapman believes herself to be on the side of the angels but the reality is that she's an enabler of angry men behind verbal and physical attacks on women who reject the idea someone may change their sex. To Maggie Chapman and other privileged politicians and campaigners, the problems of others are to be viewed in the abstract and solutions are to be found in the strict ideologies to which they subscribe. These powerful people simply cannot, I believe, conceive of dangerous circumstances from which they could not extricate themselves. Their support for the dismantling of women's rights and their contempt for the principles of safeguarding are fomented in a bubble of back-slapping do-goodery, where to question their beliefs if to be a hateful bigot. To a colossal ego, add the failure of both imagination and compassion and you've got yourself a Maggie Chapman.
Daily Record
21-04-2025
- Daily Record
Cops launch probe after 'unexplained' death of woman on country road
Emergency services had blocked the road off for several hours on Monday morning. Police have launched an investigation after the death "unexplained" woman on a country road. Cops were called to a rural road in West Lothian on April 21 just before 6am after reports of a death. Officers raced to the scene and blocked off Sibbalds Brae, on the outskirts of Bathgate, after being made aware of the death of a woman, reports Edinburgh Live. It is not thought to be suspicious but a full probe will be carried out. A Police Scotland spokesperson said: 'Around 5.45am on Monday, 21 April, 2025, we were made aware of the death of a woman on Sibbalds Brae, Bathgate. 'The death is being treated as unexplained but not believed to be suspicious and a report will be sent to the Procurator Fiscal in due course.' It comes as a probe was launched after a woman was reportedly raped near Glasgow Sheriff Court in the early hours of the morning. The alleged horror sex attack took place at around 3am on Monday April 21 on Carlton Court in the city centre. Police have cordoned off the street and are combing the scene after receiving reports of a serious sexual assault. Images from the scene show the area taped off as uniformed officers stand guard. A Police Scotland spokesperson said: ' Enquiries are ongoing following a report of a serious sexual assault on a woman in Carlton Court, Glasgow around 3am on Monday, 21 April, 2025. Enquiries are at an early stage.' Reports of rape and attempted rape in Scotland have increased by nine per cent in the past year, figures show. Statistics released by the Scottish Government in February show a jump in the number of reports from 2,545 to 2,785 between 2023 and 2024. The figure also increased by 25 per cent between 2020 and 2024, though Scotland was in the depths of lockdown for the majority of 2020. Rape Crisis Scotland said more should be done to help young people understand consent. The increase comes as the total number of sexual crimes recorded in 2024 decreased by two per cent. Join the Daily Record WhatsApp community! Get the latest news sent straight to your messages by joining our WhatsApp community today. You'll receive daily updates on breaking news as well as the top headlines across Scotland. No one will be able to see who is signed up and no one can send messages except the Daily Record team. All you have to do is click here if you're on mobile, select 'Join Community' and you're in! If you're on a desktop, simply scan the QR code above with your phone and click 'Join Community'. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose 'exit group'. If you're curious, you can read our Privacy Notice. Sandy Brindley, chief executive of Rape Crisis Scotland, said: 'This is a significant increase in the number of rapes reported to the police. While some of it may be due to increased confidence, we absolutely can't rule out that more rapes are taking place. 'We urgently need to step up our efforts to ensure all young people in Scotland have access to interventions exploring consent and healthy relationships. Unless we are serious about investing in efforts to prevent rape, we are going to keep seeing reports of rape increasing every year.' The number of non-sexual violent crimes recorded increased by 10 per cent in the most recent year. This was spurred by a 50 per cent spike in the number of reports of domestic abuse offences, which rose from 1,963 to 2,409. You can find support for issues mentioned in this story at Rape Crisis Scotland here.
