FOI/202600521270 · FOI · unclear
Criminal Proceedings in Scotland statistics: FOI release
Information requested
You asked for a breakdown of the outcome for each female homicide accused (by year) between 2005-06 and 2024-25, ie. conviction type (murder, culpable homicide, non-fatal offence), how many of these accused proceeded to trial and how many accused had proceedings against them dropped.
Response
While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have some of the information you have requested. The reasons why we don't have the information are explained below.
The Scottish Government does not have the information you have asked for because the Homicide in Scotland accredited official statistics do now show what subsequently happened to each accused.
The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) collect data on charges received by Police Scotland and their outcomes. To be helpful in this response, we have asked them to provide figures for females accused of murder/culpable homicide over the time period requested. This data is provided in Table 1. If you require further information on this data, you can contact COPFS directly at foi@copfs.gov.uk.
Table 1. Charges reported to COPFS and outcomes where charge is Murder and Culpable Homicide where accused is female, 2005-06 to 2024-25.
Action taken re Charge Outcome 2005-06 2006-07 2007-08 2008-09 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13 2013-14 2014-15 2015-16 2016-17 2017-18 2018-19 2019-20 2020-21 2021-22 2022-23 2023-24 2024-25 Court Convicted 6 5 10 12 13 21 6 10 9 6 4 5 5 5 3 2 2 2 8 5 Court Not Convicted 5 4 8 5 2 8 0 4 0 0 4 4 1 5 2 2 5 2 3 0 Court Ongoing 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 3 Court No Further Action 2 2 5 0 3 1 0 0 1 3 2 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 Court Mental Health Issue 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 Court All court outcomes 13 11 24 17 18 31 6 14 10 10 10 10 6 10 6 5 7 5 13 8 Not Separately Actioned Not Separately Actioned 3 1 3 4 1 2 1 2 2 0 0 0 0 2 0 1 4 4 3 0 No Action No Action 2 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 No Decision No Decision 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 Total Actions taken Total Outcomes 18 13 28 22 20 35 9 18 14 10 10 10 6 12 6 6 11 9 18 10
Source: Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service.
The counts provided in Table 1 above are at charge level and are recorded in the financial year the charge is reported.
Charges categorised as "Not Separately Actioned" were not taken to court, but the accused was taken to court in respect of other charges (which may or may not have been under murder/culpable homicide charges). Some of the libel in the "Not Separately Actioned" charges may have been incorporated into the charges that were taken to court.
COPFS uses a live operational database to manage the processing of reports submitted to Procurators Fiscal by the police and other reporting agencies throughout Scotland. It is designed to meet business needs in the processing of criminal cases rather than for statistical purposes and the information within it is structured accordingly. Information provided is correct as at 3rd July 2026 and therefore may be subject to change as data is continuously updated for operational and other reasons.
People proceeded against in Scottish courts as well as convictions and sentences are published as Criminal Proceedings in Scotland. The most recent publication contains data up to 2023-24. These statistics are based on a separate and unlinked data set to Homicide in Scotland, and only includes people for whom their cases reached some form of conclusion in Scottish courts. It does not include data on whether a case proceeded to trial or not, only the outcome.
As stated previously, the Homicide in Scotland and Criminal Proceedings are not linked, nor can they easily be compared. Criminal Proceedings in Scotland statistics count the number of people with particular court outcomes based on the financial year in which court proceedings concluded, whereas Homicide in Scotland statistics count accused persons based on the financial year in which the homicide was first recorded by the police, however to be as helpful as possible we provide what we are able to in Table 2.
Table 2: Females accused of homicide in Scottish courts, by offence and outcome, 2005-2006 to 2023-2024
Main charge Outcome 2005-2006 2006-2007 2007-2008 2008-2009 2009-2010 2010-2011 2011-2012 2012-2013 2013-2014 2014-2015 2015-2016 2016-2017 2017-2018 2018-2019 2019-2020 2020-2021 2021-2022 2022-2023 2023- 2024 Culpable homicide Acquitted 0 1 0 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 0 Culpable homicide Convicted 7 8 5 3 5 8 6 7 2 2 3 0 4 1 1 1 1 0 0 Culpable homicide Deserted simpliciter 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Culpable homicide Plea Not guilty accepted 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 Culpable homicide Proceedings discontinued 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 Culpable homicide Proceedings dropped 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Murder Acquitted 0 0 1 1 1 3 1 0 3 0 0 3 1 1 2 1 3 0 2 Murder Convicted 2 1 1 4 4 6 4 2 4 1 2 4 0 4 2 1 1 1 1 Murder Deserted simpliciter 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Murder Plea Not guilty accepted 0 0 3 1 2 0 5 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 Murder Proceedings discontinued 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0 2 0 0 0 0 Murder Proceedings dropped 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Source: Criminal Proceedings in Scotland 2023-24.
Table 2 provides data up to 2023-24, the most up to date Criminal Proceedings data held by the Scottish Government.
The data provided in Table 2 counts people by main charge. The main charge is the one that conferred the most severe penalty. Assignment to a financial year is based on when proceedings concluded in court and this may be later than when any offence(s) took place or were recorded by the police.
This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.
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Contact Please quote the FOI reference Central Correspondence Unit Email: contactus@gov.scot Phone: 0300 244 4000 The Scottish Government St Andrew's House Regent Road Edinburgh EH1 3DG
Detected exemption language
This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.
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