Dehumanising & traumatising

Research reveals rape victims are let down by legal process following devastating trauma

- ANNIE BROWN

RAPE victims have revealed in a ground-breaking study how Scotland's justice system failed them.

In one of the largest research projects of its kind in the UK, women described the process as "brutal, dehumanising and traumatising and claimed they were often treated like "a bag of evidence" rather than a person.

The study led by Sandy Brindley, head of Rape Crisis Scotland also found some victims felt pressurised into using special measures such as screens in court, which rob them of an opportunity to face their attacker.

Brindley spoke to 20 victims of sexual crime and found there was a disconnect between victims' rights, in theory, and their experience in practice and many were left feeling ignored.

She said: "They felt the justice process was something they were subject to rather than having some level of agency, or control, within."