Letter to the Convener of the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee

6th December 2023 • Criminal Justice   Criminal justice data   Policing   Scottish Parliament Public petition  

Following today’s parliamentary evidence sesssion on our petition to require Police Scotland to record sex accurately in cases of rape or attempted rape, we sent the letter below to the Convenor of the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee.

Jackson Carlaw MSP
Convener
Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee
By email

Dear Convenor,

PETITION 1876

Thank-you for offering us the opportunity to give evidence earlier. We appreciate the care the Committee has taken to pursue the issue we have raised.

As we said in Committee, we would support Mr Ewing’s suggestion that Police Scotland should be asked which of its values is reflected in giving any rape suspects control over which sex they are recorded as, and in making victims of rape experience having their male assailant described as a woman. As we noted, the recording choice by Police Scotland flows through into the courts, the media, and we presume may also influence the language used by investigating officers with victims. It would be useful to clarify that last point.

On the question of Andrew Miller, the point we wished the Committee to note is that in this case the person involved would evidently have met the test for being recorded as female if he had chosen to. Moreover, the court recorded that he had chosen not to by his own admission. As Dr Hunter Blackburn noted, we would ask the Committee to note that Miller’s conviction, which was on the basis of a guilty plea, is not under any sort of appeal, and the only appeal is in relation to his sentence. There are contexts, such as this, where the ability to refer to a specific criminal case is important. We make this point here because Police Scotland has previously asserted any concern is wholly theoretical. The case also illustrates so clearly that one effect of the policy is to give a rapist, and any other sex offender, control over how his sex is officially recorded.

Repeating our final point, we would want to stress that we wanted to place on the record that the need to have a discussion on these terms is due to Police Scotland’s unwillingness to rethink its policy, that has in turn made this petition such a drawn-out process.

Yours

Dr Lucy Hunter Blackburn
Lisa Mackenzie
Dr Kath Murray