Iain Macwhirter Iain Macwhirter

Scotland’s sentencing nightmare

Glasgow High Court (photo: Alamy)

Not content with putting trans rapists in women’s prisons the Scottish government is now accused of keeping heterosexual rapists out of prison altogether. A furious row has broken out after 21-year-old Sean Hogg was given a community payback sentence by a Scottish judge after being found guilty of raping a 13-year-old girl in a country park in 2018.

This bizarre situation has arisen from those good intentions which so often pave the path to perdition

What does the SNP have against women? cried rape victims. JK Rowling reached for her keyboard to condemn ‘progressive Scotland’ for failing to protect women’s safety. ‘Young Scottish men’, she told her 14 million followers on Twitter , ‘are effectively being told “first time’s free.”’ Actually, in theory, they could do it any number of times before they’re 25. Under new Scottish government-approved sentencing guidelines the presumption is that, ideally, no one under that age should be sent to prison because their brains haven’t matured.

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Written by
Iain Macwhirter

Iain Macwhirter is a former BBC TV presenter and was political commentator for The Herald between 1999 and 2022. He is an author of Road to Referendum and Disunited Kingdom: How Westminster Won a Referendum but Lost Scotland.

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