QC Helena Kennedy shocked by level of misogyny in Scotland

A QC who was tasked with looking at misogyny in Scotland said she was "shocked" by the evidence she heard.

Baroness Helena Kennedy led a team of experts who last month called for a new law to tackle violence and abuse against women.

She told Holyrood's criminal justice committee that there was a "very strong sense" among women in Scotland that something needed to be done.

The parliament is examining the recommendation for new legislation.

• Call for new law to tackle misogyny in Scotland

• MPs reject proposal to make misogyny a hate crime

In her opening statement to MSPs, she said: "We [the expert panel] were shocked, and I say that as someone who is a pretty dyed-in-the-wool criminal lawyer who thought that she had heard it all.

"This report is in a particular period of time and I think we can't deny that something is happening at the moment which meant every single woman or group that appeared in front of us was saying something has to be done."

The Scottish government had commissioned Baroness Kennedy's group to examine whether there were still gaps in the law following the introduction of the Hate Crime Act last year.

The proposed law would also look to tackle online abuse and threats towards women

Its report, titled Misogyny - A Human Rights Issue, did not call for the hate crime legislation to be widened to include misogyny because women were not a minority group.

Instead it called for a separate Misogyny and Criminal Justice Act to be created, which would make misogyny an aggravation as well as creating three new offences:

• Stirring up hatred against women and girls.

• Public misogynistic harassment.

• Issuing threats of, or invoking, rape or sexual assault or disfigurement of women and girls either online or offline.

Baroness Kennedy told MSPs: "There is a very strong sense amongst women in the Scottish public that something has to be done about the high level of harassment misogyny that they experience in the daily round.

"This is affecting women and girls in their lives and it really does undermine in a serious way their sense of self-confidence and self-worth and the ways in which they conduct their own lives and what their aspirations are.

"The evidence was shocking and that allows us to justify certain departures from normal ways of dealing with criminal matters."

As well as calling for a change in the law ,the expert group made other recommendations including additional education and training within the criminal justice system and public awareness-raising campaigns.

Justice Secretary Keith Brown said the government would consider the report's recommendations.

Gender recognition

During her evidence session Baroness Kennedy insisted that any new legislation focused on misogyny would not interfere with Scottish government plans to reform the Gender Recognition Act.

Legislation to make it easier for transgender people to obtain a Gender Recognition Certificate is currently progressing through Holyrood.

The lawyer said: "Parliament is making its own decisions and you all as parliamentarians will make your decisions on transgender recognition and how that should be done.

"That was not my job - my job was to deal with the fact that women, over 50% of the population of Scotland, are experiencing this stuff and experiencing it all the time.

"Women have experienced this - we all have as women - and I'm sure that trans women will experience misogyny too as they live out their lives."