Delays have plagued Scotland's mission to end violence against women

Violence against women has reached “epidemic” levels, John Swinney has said. That realisation came to him over the summer.

As he prepared for a planned meeting with a domestic abuse survivor, the first minister read four separate stories about four separate violent attacks on women. It was a crystalising moment that will see his government do more, he said.

“Throughout my service as a minister in the Scottish Government, I have been involved in and have supported many measures to tackle violence against women and girls,” Swinney told parliament as he opened a debate on the issue last week. “However, this summer I felt that increased priority and leadership had to be given to addressing the situation and that has led me to pledge my personal leadership to tackle the epidemic of violence against women and girls in Scotland.”

The survivor the first minister was meeting was Danielle Conaghan, who was subjected to 15 years of abuse by her now estranged husband. David MacDonald was jailed for 12 years over the summer, having been found guilty of rape, attempted murder and a range of other charges. Danielle is calling for more support to be put in place, after feeling repeatedly let down by a system that should have offered protection.

Hers is not the only harrowing story to have surfaced this year. Stacy Hunter was murdered by estranged husband Jim Mair in July. Three weeks before, he had appeared in court accused of strangling her and was released on bail. Stacy’s family are now called for GPS tracking to be rolled out for violent men as part of bail conditions.

Vikki Solomon was also murdered in July. Her partner Lee Greenan had been charged and remanded in custody but was later found dead in HMP Edinburgh.

And last month, Joseph Greer was sentenced to 22 years imprisonment for murdering his partner, Samantha Lee. Greer had been banned from approaching her as part of bail conditions connected to an earlier attack.

It is encouraging that more victims feel able to come forward and report offences

These tragic incidents are only the sharp end of a much wider problem. Statistics published in the last few months have shown violence against women appears to be getting worse. Recorded sexual crimes increased by nine per cent in the year ending June 2026, while domestic abuse offences rose by 19 per cent. Separate figures from the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service show domestic abuse charges had risen 14 per cent in a year, totalling 34,586 in 2025-26.

Justice secretary Neil Gray said that while the government was “extremely concerned” about the increase, he added: “It is encouraging that more victims feel able to come forward and report offences, including historical crimes.” A similar sentiment was echoed by Swinney during the first FMQs back after summer, when he said the justice system was “more responsive” and women were more “confident” in coming forward.

Still, the government recognises that more needs to be done – and so when the first minister delivered his Programme for Government at the start of September, efforts to tackle violence against women featured heavily.

Alongside the Misogyny Bill – set to be introduced in a matter of months – Swinney also made commitments on service provision, multi-year funding for third sector organisations, a “public health campaign” challenging misogynistic attitudes, and more legal protections (including a Violence Against Women and Girls Protections Bill to be introduced later in session seven).

Keen followers of politics will know the Misogyny Bill is not new. Indeed, the Scottish Government has already consulted on such a bill – back in March 2023.

Perpetrators will face the consequences of their actions through robust prosecution

That proposal came from a government-commissioned report authored by Labour peer Baroness Helena Kennedy. Kennedy’s working group called for legislation to enable judges to consider misogyny as an aggravating factor when sentencing for other crimes. It also suggested creating three new offences: stirring up hatred against women and girls; public misogynistic harassment; and issuing threats of rape, sexual assault or disfigurement of women and girls either online or offline.

The establishment of that group dates even further back, to when the parliament was refreshing hate crime laws at the end of the fifth session of parliament. SNP ministers asked Kennedy to conduct the review after instructing MSPs to vote against the inclusion of ‘sex’ as a protected characteristic covered by the Hate Crime and Public Order Bill. At the time, ministers justified that stance by arguing crimes motivated by misogyny may require a different response.

Yet in May 2025, the Scottish Government concluded there was “insufficient time” to bring forward the planned standalone legislation. “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,” parliamentary business minister Jamie Hepburn said at the time. The water was also muddied, it was claimed, by the Supreme Court’s ruling just weeks before about the definition of ‘sex’ and ‘woman’ in the Equality Act.

I do not for a moment doubt the good intentions of John Swinney... But [government] choices and delays have been fatal

Hepburn confirmed the government would instead U-turn on the previous session’s decision and bring forward secondary legislation to add the protected characteristic of sex to the Hate Crime Act. Those regulations were passed by MSPs in March and will come into force next April.

Yet the government’s vacillation on these two bits of law is not the only delay to plague efforts to tackle violence against women. A pilot for the GPS tracking of bailed suspects, as called for by the Hunter family, is only due to start next year. By comparison, this technology has been in use in England and Wales since 2018.

And even with the pilot set to go ahead – Swinney confirmed it would get underway in the Tayside, Fife and Central region – there has been concern about resourcing. As SNP MSP Patricia Gibson, who also chairs North Ayrshire Women’s Aid, said in the debate, GPS tracking will only be of benefit if there is an “immediate and efficient emergency response when a breach alert is triggered”. At present, it can take police up to 24 hours to respond, but it “may take only a few moments for a former partner to slay a vulnerable woman”, she said.

Then there’s the Domestic Abuse (Protection) Act, passed in 2021 but yet to fully come into force. This would empower courts and police to remove suspected perpetrators from shared homes via domestic abuse protection orders and notices. Ministers expect to bring forward a consultation before the end of the year to tackle “complex operational challenges” on implementing that part of the act.

Work is also underway, the government says, to establish a new specialist sexual offences court. The was part of the Victims, Witnesses, and Justice Reform Act 2025. It is hoped this will speed up the time victims wait between reporting the crime and a verdict – currently this sits at just under three years on average – while also making the process more trauma-informed. Again, proper resourcing for this proposal remains a concern though Swinney told MSPs it will be established in the next financial year.

Not all recent legislative changes have been positive. The Bail and Release from Custody Act, passed in 2023, sought to reform the bail test – but in doing so it removed a presumption against bail for people accused of violent, sexual, and/or domestic abuse offences. When the law came into force in full, Victims Support Scotland released a statement saying this was an “important safeguarding tool and it will be much missed in the new regulations”.

Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay, who hosted a roundtable with survivors and the FM ahead of the debate, has repeatedly raised similar concerns. In the latest debate, he linked the decision to the murders of Stacy Hunter and Samantha Lee – adding that the perpetrators had been “freed to kill”.

Swinney continues to defend the policy, saying the reforms were “designed to put public and victim safety at the heart of bail decision-making” through a “single, all-encompassing bail test”. But the concern that this new test does not work for domestic abuse victims is cross-party, with Gibson, her SNP colleague David Linden and Lib Dem MSP Willie Rennie all putting on record their belief the decision to remove the presumption against may have been the wrong one.

For her part, Lord Advocate Ruth Charteris – who heads up the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service – has insisted that improving the criminal justice system’s response to this violence is one of her priorities. “Perpetrators will face the consequences of their actions through robust prosecution that reflects the nature and seriousness of their offending,” she said after the latest figures on domestic abuse charges were published. “Victims should be assured they will be listened to and taken seriously by prosecutors; their experiences will be recognised; they will be supported through the legal process.”

But in the same statement, she also highlighted the response to violence against women and girls must be far wider than her remit. “Ending domestic abuse in our communities is an issue for each of us to address every day, challenging harmful attitudes and behaviours wherever we see them. Prevention is vital if Scotland is to reduce this harm in the future,” she said.

On this, Swinney has received praise for providing leadership – particularly as a male first minister. But there was also broad acknowledgement and agreement that more is needed. The first minister himself said government and wider society needed to take a “public health and preventative approach”, pledging to invest in school and mentor programmes to challenge harmful behaviour early on, and calling on the UK Government to strength the regulation of online spaces where toxic attitudes are too frequently shared and celebrated. 

Yet there must be more than warm words if violence against women is to end, a point made by Scottish Labour’s deputy leader Jackie Baillie when she raised a series of failures on protections for women at First Minister’s Questions. “I do not for a moment doubt the good intentions of John Swinney and his government. I believe that he is genuine and sincere,” she said. “But [government] choices and delays have been fatal. Will the first minister do the right thing, acknowledge that his government has failed to keep women safe, and guarantee that his warm words will finally be backed up with action?”

Still, there is clear political will on the matter. The fact that Swinney’s motion received the support of five of parliament’s six other party leaders – Reform’s Malcolm Offord’s name was notably absent – is indicative of that. And social justice secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville, closing the debate, welcomed challenges to government policy – a hopeful sign that cross-party work is to come.

“Although I believe that our programme for government will take us further, we can never be complacent,” she said. “We must recognise that people will continue to question and to point to areas where they believe there is still room for improvement or change, and we need to be open to that. Families and, indeed, survivors deserve no less.”