Sentencing body 'should apologise' to rape victims over seven-year guidelines wait
The new Scottish Sentencing council guidelines for sexual offences come into use in March
A law academic has called on Scotland’s sentencing body to apologise to rape victims for the length of time it took to complete new guidelines.
Dr Graeme Brown said the seven-year process to draft the country’s first judges’ guidance for sexual offences is a “national disgrace”.
He also warned the new sentencing levels are lower than comparable countries and claims the Scottish Sentencing Council (SSC) has merely produced a “cut-down” version of the English sentencing guidelines.
Dr Brown, of the University of Aberdeen, said: “Over the past seven years, too many victims of rape have seen their abusers receive unduly lenient sentences.
“An apology from the Council for the inordinate delay in preparing the guidelines is the very least that these victims deserve.”
The council first announced its intention to create sentencing guidelines for sexual offences in October 2018.
Nearly six years later, in July 2024, the draft guidelines were published and they were approved at the High Court last December.
They come into effect on March 3 and are guidance; judges can choose not to follow a sentencing guideline if they provide their reasons for doing so.
Dr Brown claims the “pressing need” for guidelines was emphasised by the fact of a total of 11 successfully argued Crown appeals against sentence between December 2022 and August 2025.
He said: “The Council’s complacency and the glacial pace at which the guidelines were developed, particularly in the face of the number of successful Crown appeals against sentence in cases of rape, is nothing short of a national disgrace.”
Dr Brown argues that the guidelines are a “cut-down” version of the English system.
He added: “The English methodology, largely reproduced in the Council’s guidelines on rape, fails to appreciate the often complex nature of offending and its ‘broad brush’ approach has the potential to result in serious injustice.”
Dr Brown argues that sentencing for rape is now “too prescriptive” and follows an English model of sentencing that is at odds with how Scottish judges traditionally operate.
While extremely rare, there are, he says, cases involving rape where an offender should not receive a custodial sentence but judges will now be precluded from taking a behaviour based approach to sentencing. However, at the other end of the scale, custodial sentencing ranges lag behind those of comparable countries.
A spokeswoman for the SSC said research has shown “comparisons with other jurisdictions are fraught with difficulty”.
She added: “The Council’s sentencing guidelines on rape offences are Scottish guidelines prepared for the country’s distinct legal system.”
The ranges set for the most serious examples of the offence in Scotland’s guidelines are lower than those for England and Wales.
The highest end of the range for rape under the Scottish guideline is 13 years’ imprisonment, but in England 13 years is the lowest end of the corresponding range.
The spokeswoman for the SSC added: “The guidelines have been approved by senior judges in the High Court, including the Lord Justice General, Scotland’s most senior judge, who described them as being ‘of great assistance to sentencers and to all those involved in such cases’.
“The public has a right to information about sentencing and the Council has a statutory objective to promote awareness of it.”