Government choices on violence against women ‘have been fatal’, John Swinney told

The Scottish Government’s “choices and delays” on efforts to tackle violence against women “have been fatal”, Jackie Baillie has told John Swinney.

Speaking at the first FMQs back after summer recess, Scottish Labour’s acting leader challenged the first minister on his government’s record on violent crimes targeting women.

The most recent figures found sexual crimes were on the rise, including rape, attempted rape and sexual assaults. Domestic abuse offences also rose.

Baillie said the government had “failed to keep women safe”, going on to highlight the murder of Stacy Hunter in July.

Stacy was murdered by her ex-partner Jim Mair just three weeks after he had appeared in court accused of strangling her. He was released on bail.

Baillie said Stacy’s family was now calling for Scotland to roll out GPS tracking of violent offenders who are out on bail.

She also criticised the government’s failure to bring forward to a misogyny bill sooner – it was earlier this week included in the programme for government after being delayed in the last parliament – and said changes to bail rules had “removed vital protections for domestic abuse victims”.

She said: “I do not doubt the good intentions of John Swinney and his government, I believe he is sincere, but their choices and delays have been fatal. The first minister must acknowledge that his government has failed to keep women safe, and guarantee that his warm words will finally be backed up with action.”

Swinney said his government was committed to tackling violence against women, and that part of the reason behind the rise in crimes was because the justice system was “more responsive” and women were more “confident” in coming forward.

He added the courts were “working at pace” to ensure cases were heard sooner, with legislation to establish specific sexual offence courts agreed by the last parliament.

On GPS tracking, he said a pilot was underway and his government was giving it “urgent attention” to ensure it could be rolled out in full.

He added: “Male violence against women is absolutely and completely unacceptable, and every aspect of the state is going to be deployed to root it out.”

Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay also raised the matter, calling on the government to reintroduce safeguards relating to bail and reconsider early release measures.

He said: “Will he stop violent thugs who attack women from being given bail and stop them from being freed early?”

Swinney said the bail tests had been set by the last parliament, which for the first time included specific conditions on seeking the views of victims.

Scottish Lib Dem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton, meanwhile, called for homes with a history of domestic violence to be properly flagged for priority police call outs, and for police to be given the powers to remove violent men from family homes.