I begin by agreeing with the Scottish Government motion and with Pam Gosal’s amendment, which I am glad to hear Labour supports. Reem Alsalem is not merely, to quote the First Minister,

“the person from the UN”—[

Official Report

, 24 November 2022; c 20.]— she is the special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, and when she calls on the SNP Government to listen, Nicola Sturgeon should do so.

Women across Scotland have been frustrated and sometimes furious at the SNP Government’s refusal to hear their concerns, as Rachael Hamilton pointed out. Given that today’s debate is more about what unites us than what divides us, I see no reason why colleagues would not support Pam Gosal’s important amendment.

Brian Whittle’s contribution was typically thoughtful; although Scotland’s business world has changed radically, some strangely old-fashioned views linger. Pauline McNeill made some very important points about the dangerous rise in cybercrime, and Beatrice Wishart spoke of the everyday casual leering and sexual comments that are directed at women.

We can all agree with this year’s 16 days of activism against gender-based violence. As Rona Mackay, Martin Whitfield and Paul O’Kane said, men bear responsibility for their personal and collective behaviour.

Christine McKelvie, Kaukab Stewart and others cite Police Scotland’s “That guy” campaign. No one here could disagree with its sentiment, but some might question Scottish policing’s record of misogyny, sexism and gender-based violence. Take inspector Adam Carruthers, who used his status to commit sex attacks and rape a crime victim in her own home. Investigations by some of his colleagues came to nothing—nothing to see here, apparently.

When he was finally brought to justice, it emerged that he had targeted dozens of women during his 20-year career.

Sergeant Kevin Storey was jailed in 2014 for rapes and sexual assaults. His reign of terror somehow also spanned two decades—nothing to see here. Inspector Keith Farquharson was convicted of breach of the peace when he sent a sleazy message to a young female colleague. He was demoted to constable, but was then quietly reinstated to high rank—again, nothing to see here. Farquharson is now serving a life sentence for the murder of his wife.

It can be tempting to trot out the one bad apple cliché, but bad apples too often get away with their crimes because they are protected; they are protected by a system that always seems to prioritise protecting the organisation, no matter the price. Some also say that those obscene cases could never happen today, but they can and they do.

Last week, I joined a group of women in a meeting with the justice secretary, for which I am grateful to him. The women were former police officers Karen Harper, Gemma MacRae and another who cannot be named. Karen served proudly for 22 years until being bullied out of her job. It is scandalous that she is still trapped in process purgatory after seven costly and damaging years. Gemma was bullied by the boys’ club and sexually assaulted by a colleague. It is scandalous that when she reported what was happening it was covered up. We were also joined by Annie Hirdman, who suffered years of violence at the hands of her police officer partner. It is scandalous that the justice system treated him with kid gloves and her with disrespect. Those women each had painful and lurid stories to tell, not just about the boys’ club culture, but about something much more toxic and insidious: the nothing to see here culture that permeates policing. That culture protects wrongdoers and targets those who bravely speak out—such as those women—and it pressures many good cops to stay silent for fear of repercussions.

Those women do not disagree with the “That guy” message; their problem is with what they see as a gulf between Police Scotland’s public relations rhetoric and the reality of its management culture.

The women handed Keith Brown a letter questioning whether the national force is able to change. It said:

“These are the same people who long presided over and defended the broken, costly and damaging system” and that

“‘That Guy’ feels like a form of gaslighting—the phenomenon whereby abusers cause victims to doubt what happened to them.”