Chamber and committees

Two projects are funded by the Executive specifically to support survivors of sexual abuse, including male as well as female rape victims. A number of other projects with a broader remit will also provide support to male rape victims. In addition, the Executive commissioned research in this area which is published in the report, The Experience of Violence and Harassment of Gay Men in the City of Edinburgh. Copies are available in the Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib. number 5154).In terms of the support provided within the criminal justice system, criminal justice agencies have a shared commitment, enshrined in the Scottish Strategy for Victims, to ensure that all victims, regardless of their gender, are able to access support, assistance and information at all stages in the criminal justice process.

The information requested is not collected centrally.

There are no rules preventing witnesses from being prepared for court by explaining to them what will happen and providing visits to court for young or vulnerable witnesses. Preparation of this type is often done. To coach witnesses in the sense of telling them what to say would undermine their credibility and reliability and might well amount to a criminal offence. The Executive has no intention of changing the law in this respect.

Every Scottish force has specialist officers dedicated to the investigation of sexual offences. The number and allocation of these officers is a matter for individual Chief Constables.

Scottish police forces do not routinely screen arrestees for drugs.However, in relation to driving offences, drug recognition techniques and field impairment testing were introduced by Scottish forces in June 2001.

The Domestic Abuse Service Development Fund administered by the Scottish Executive Justice Department provides £6 million over four years to strengthen local services, of which £79,000 currently supports seven projects where all or part of the matched funding is provided by an NHS board.

The new Crime and Criminal Justice Research Programme is not yet available for publication. The previous Research Programme ran from 1998 to 2001. A new research agenda is being worked out for publication early in 2002. Even when the research agenda is published it will not be possible to say how much monies will be devoted to a specific issue such as domestic violence. Research is not commissioned to a fixed timetable but, rather, according to identified and emerging priorities and the cost of that research is determined by the nature of the study and how long it takes to complete.

The Executive is committed to ensuring that women who have experienced domestic abuse get the support and protection they need. This includes providing a sufficient number of refuge places but also providing support to those who do not wish to leave. There are many reasons why women might be reluctant to leave an abusive partner and may suffer a number of incidents of abuse before doing so. Her decision must be respected. The important thing is that she should get the help and information she wants at any stage. The information on repeat victimisation in the police statistics is very helpful in building up a picture of the nature of abuse. It is for police forces to decide how they will respond to specific instances of repeat victimisation.

Internet regulation is a reserved issue. Matters relating to the protection of children using the internet is the responsibility of the Home Office which has established a task force involving representatives from across the UK internet industry. As a result of the group's recommendations to raise public awareness of the activities of paedophiles in internet chatrooms and steps to avoid them the Executive is contributing to the current UK-wide "know the net" campaign to alert children to the risks of the internet and how to minimise them. The Executive is also participating in a UK-wide exercise to accredit educational Internet service providers who wish to serve the education market (including libraries, community learning facilities, UK Online centres etc). The main focus of the approval process is on safety features such as content filtering.

The objective of the police is to investigate such incidents properly and fully. The objective of procurators fiscal is to scrutinise reports for a sufficiency of evidence and then to select from the range of available options the one which is most appropriate in the particular case. One important consideration is the probability that any given option will reduce the likelihood of further offending. Allegations of domestic abuse are treated very seriously by prosecutors who were issued in July 2000 with fresh training and guidance on this area of offending. However, it would be inappropriate to have an objective to increase the number of prosecutions. Each individual case must be considered on its own merits.