ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ News Website, 20 January 2023

Summary of complaint

We received complaints that our article Man, 70, jailed for sex with child behind Glasgow supermarket used inappropriate terminology to refer to the offence.


Our response

We understand that the reporting of these cases can cause distress and it is not our intention to add to that. However, it is also important, in reporting any court case, that journalists accurately describe the charges the accused faces.

In Scots law, charges in sexual crimes are brought under the .

There is no charge of β€œstatutory rape” under this law. Instead the law draws a distinction between victims aged under 13 (where sex is automatically considered rape) and those when children are between 13 but under 16.

In these β€œolder children”, an offender can be convicted of either rape or sex with a child. These are different crimes with different penalties.

In this case, the offender was not charged with rape but with the offence of sex with a child, which he admitted. As such, we cannot report the case as rape.

We understand that not everyone will agree with how the law deals with these crimes but our story was an accurate summary of the court case, and we added some extra lines in the story to give context to what the law is in this case.