#198 Speak Out Survivors

FiLiA

"It's not rocket science... you investigate the suspect, not the victim," – Harriet Wistrich.
In this episode, Suzy Angus and Emma Bryson, survivors of sexual violence and founders of Speak Out Survivors, meet Dr Oona Brooks-Hay (Reader in Criminology at the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research at the University of Glasgow) and Harriet Wistrich (Director of the Centre for Women's Justice) to discuss the difficulties in Scotland for victims and survivors to access justice. In particular, related to the outdated legal requirement for 'corroboration', which under Scots law means that only very specific types of evidence are admissible for the purposes of a criminal prosecution.
Speak Out Survivors was founded in 2018 by survivors of sexual violence who all sought justice through the Scottish criminal justice system but were told it was not possible for a prosecution to go ahead. Although in each of our cases, there was evidence available, that evidence did not meet the very stringent requirements of corroboration.