Police Scotland is unable to explain a “significant increase” in voyeurism in Scotland.

Figures obtained by The Herald on Sunday reveal there were 547 voyeurism crimes recorded by police in 2022, compared to 394 in 2020/21 and against a five-year average of 248.6.

A spokesman for the force said it could be a “number of factors” including the “continuing national focus on all aspects of violence against women and girls as well as high-profile reporting of sexual crime”. 

“These may have encouraged people to come forward and to feel confident in reporting concerns to the police,” they added.

Under the Sexual Offences (Scotland) Act 2009, voyeurism also includes upskirting.

The law was amended in 2010 to make it illegal to take a picture or a film beneath a person’s clothing to observe their “genitals or buttocks (whether exposed or covered with underwear)” without their consent.

However, it has, for years, been little prosecuted. Between 2011 and 2018 there were, on average, just three prosecutions.

While Scotland’s law changed over a decade ago, it was only in 2019 when MPs moved to adopt similar legislation in England and Wales following a campaign by Gina Martin.

She spent 18 months fighting to make upskirting a specific offence after a man took a picture up her skirt at a festival in 2017 and police declined to prosecute.

Notoriously, her efforts were almost undone when Tory MP Christopher Chope used Parliament procedure to block legislation that she and other MPs had spent months working on.

Speaking to The Herald on Sunday, Professor Clare McGlynn, from Durham Law School, an expert in image-based sexual abuse and sexual violence, speculated the “public debate that accompanied the campaigns and criminalisation in England of the offence” could have partly fuelled the increase north of the Border.

“It was relatively unknown that Scotland actually had an offence against upskirting, and the English law simply adopted the Scots law,” she said. “So, I think there has been a growing awareness both of the existence of this abuse, and a willingness to report it as it is now a crime.”

The academic said, more generally, that increases in some forms of online abuse, such as voyeurism and intimate image abuse, had risen “because it is just far easier to take and distribute images and videos than ever before”.

She added: “And online there are vast communities of users sharing images with each other and advice on how best to take images without being caught. This is true for upskirting.

“There are whole genres dedicated to this form of abuse – upskirting, voyeurism, hidden cams etc – on the mainstream commercial porn sites which glorifies and normalises this form of abuse.

“Since the pandemic, online abuse has risen, and we see that from surveys and statistics on people experiencing online abuse. That might include upskirting and similar. “

Offences double

Last year, in England and Wales, 46 men and one teenage boy were prosecuted for 128 offences under the Voyeurism (Offences) Act between April 2020 and June 2021, more than double the offences in the previous year.

Fifteen of the men prosecuted were also charged with other serious sexual crimes. 
These include child abuse, sexual assault, extreme pornography, and wider voyeurism offences.

Prof McGlynn said awareness of the crime had “an impact on its detection and reporting”.
She said: “In many of the English cases reported, it is bystanders who have noticed the behaviour and reported it – i.e. a member of the public, or often security guards etc, have seen the behaviour and reported/challenged someone.

“This is encouraging. I think women have also decided they’ve had enough of this sort of abuse, and are increasingly willing to report it.”

Liberal Democrat MSP Liam McArthur said he was concerned by the rise in offences: “I have previously revealed the low rates of upskirting prosecutions in Scotland since the law was introduced 12 years ago. Meanwhile, we know prosecutions have more than doubled in England and Wales in the years since Liberal Democrat proposals made upskirting a specific criminal offence.

“If levels of prosecutions remain low here at a time of increased recorded crimes, this will only give rise to questions as to whether or not Scottish legislation remains fit for purpose. Ultimately, poor rates of prosecutions risk discouraging victims from coming forward in future.”

Earlier this year, West Lothian football coach Myles Allan was placed on the sex offenders register after being found guilty of upskirting a colleague. He was caught after two videos and two pictures of the woman were discovered on his work computer.