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Campaigning to end ‘Not Proven’ verdicts
EVE LIVINGSTON on the the campaign to end the arcane legal verdict that is letting Scottish rapists off
Sandy Brindley, chief executive of Rape Crisis Scotland, leaves the Personal Injury Court in Edinburgh, last June, following the start of the trial of Stephen Coxen, who is being sued for £100,000 in damages by a woman he was previously cleared of raping in St Andrews in 2013

For hundreds of years, Scotland has been one of the only countries in the world – and the only in Europe – to present three possible verdicts in criminal trials: guilty, not guilty, or not proven.

Now a campaign spearheaded by rape survivors and charities seeks to change that, calling for the abolition of the controversial “not proven” verdict which they argue is disproportionately used in rape cases.

The campaign was born when a woman known only as Miss M successfully sued Stephen Coxen, her accused rapist, in a civil court in 2015 following a not proven verdict in a criminal trial. It was the first civil damages action for rape following an unsuccessful criminal prosecution in almost a century.

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