Rape victim launches legal battle to scrap ‘not proven’ verdict
A WOMAN who won a civil rape case is spearheading a campaign to scrap the not proven verdict in Scottish criminal trials.
She is backed by a host of women’s groups and antiviolence organisations in calling for the ‘confusing’ verdict to be abandoned.
The End Not Proven campaign argues it is returned disproportionately in sexual violence cases and gives juries an ‘easy out’ when reaching a decision.
The woman – known as Miss M because she cannot be named for legal reasons – won £80,000 in damages last month against a man who had previously been cleared of raping her.
She sued Stephen Coxen, accusing him of raping her in St Andrews, Fife, after a night out in September 2013. At a criminal trial in November 2015, Coxen, of Bury, Lancashire, had denied the charges and a jury acquitted him on a not proven verdict.
But after the civil case at the Personal Injury Court in the Edinburgh Sheriff Court building, Sheriff Robert Weir, QC, ruled she had been raped. Miss M said: ‘It is not justice that motivated me to start this campaign to end the not proven verdict, it was injustice.’
Uniquely, Scotland has three verdicts – guilty, not guilty and not proven.
Not guilty and not proven are both verdicts of acquittal. Miss M described the not proven verdict as ‘clouded with ambiguity’. She said: ‘Not proven is most commonly used in cases of rape and sexual violence.
‘I fear – as someone who received a not proven verdict and spent three long years fighting the Scottish legal system – that the not proven verdict means those who are raped are unfairly left without justice.’
She added: ‘There is no convincing argument to retain the outdated verdict, it’s time to scrap not proven for good.’
Scottish Women’s Aid said: ‘We stand by Miss M and those who want an end to this non-verdict.’
But Brian McConnachie, QC, told BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland show: ‘Juries understand the fact there are two acquittal verdicts and the choice between them is simply a way of them indicating to the court which they feel best represents their verdict.’
A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘Lord Bonomy’s post-corroboration safeguards review recommended that research be undertaken to better understand the dynamics of jury decision-making in Scotland’s jury system.
‘Changes to Scotland’s jury system, including the not proven verdict, would best be made on an informed basis, so ministers will await the findings of the independent jury research.’
‘Clouded with ambiguity’