A horrific case and women are being failed every day
This is a horrific case and our utmost sympathies are with the family, friends and loved ones of Louise Aitchison.
Sadly, this case mirrors patterns we often see in scenarios where abusers ultimately murder women.
We are glad to hear the Lord Advocate has referred this case to the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner.
We hope this investigation produces learning for the entire criminal justice system, because every day women and children are let down by the authorities and systems supposed to protect them.
When women are not believed, when their fear and anger are dismissed and minimised, when they ask for help and are ignored, this is what happens. When agencies view abuse and violence as isolated incidents, rather than predictable patterns of behaviour, this is the outcome. As long as women have less money, less freedom, less power in our families, public and private institutions and communities, men will feel entitled to abuse and women and children will die. Women’s Aid staff work daily to protect women and children and to offer their specialist insight to local agencies, to courts, to police, and to multi-agency structures like multi-agency risk assessment conferences, community justice partnerships, and violence against women partnerships. Every Women’s Aid manager in Scotland can tell you how hard it is to get their voices heard.
Great improvements have been made in policing, in law and in policy, in recent years, and yet system responses to domestic abuse are still so very far from good enough.
The distance between what we say should happen and what women and children so often experience remains huge, and professional accountability is often invisible.
As this case demonstrates, protection and justice remain just a dream for so many women and children living with domestic abuse.