Our national force says the right thing. It needs to do it

Gemma MacRae could – and should – still be serving Scotland as a proud and capable police officer.

Instead, she has joined the growing list of women whose careers have been destroyed by a pernicious police culture coloured by sexism, misogyny, bullying, delay and cover-up.

Anyone reading MacRae’s story today will be appalled and that will include the vast majority of good, professional officers putting themselves on the line every day to protect us.

However, we should not be asked to listen to the usual excuses – that this was one bad apple, a rogue officer – because they are clearly claptrap.

A cabal of male officers in Moray were accused of bullying, intimidation and worse against female officers, civilians and members of the public.

Senior officers up to the rank of superintendent were first alerted to serious sexual allegations as far back as February 2018 and it remains reprehensible that those accusations were effectively placed, forgotten, in a bottom drawer while due process was abandoned and standard operating procedures ignored.

In fact, the only truly effective action taken by senior officers was to ensure MacRae, and the other courageous women who dared to raise the alarm, felt isolated, undermined and discredited.

I first became aware of what was happening in late 2019 while working as a producer at STV. Later, we discovered that Police Scotland had started an investigation into the source of our reports. Talk about misplaced priorities. Another female officer was wrongly suspected and, sadly but unsurprisingly given our revelations, became a target just like MacRae.

Today, every senior officer who failed to act when given the opportunity should hang their head in shame. They should also be held to account.

But as Police Scotland prepares to spend more time and money on PR campaigns explaining how it is tackling misogyny in the force and in society, MacRae will not be alone in thinking words have rarely been cheaper or more hollow.

After surviving a long, lonely and bruising battle for justice, she is owed a public apology but, more than that, she, like all of us, deserves to know the officers leading our national force will learn from this scandal and that effective action will be taken in its wake.

It has long been clear that the police can no longer be trusted to police themselves and for the sake of MacRae and all other victims, the justice secretary must ensure, our national force not only says the right thing but does the right thing.