End of 2025: The View From the Dock
If you’ve never been falsely accused, it’s easy to imagine the system as a straight line: Report, investigation, trial, truth.
But for a growing number of men in Scotland, 2025 has looked like something else entirely. It is a process where accusation becomes gravity, and every other aspect of human life is forced to orbit it.
We’ve watched cases where “procedure” matters more than substance. Where the accused is treated like a hazard to be managed, not a citizen to be protected. The punishment begins long before any verdict—and it rarely ends cleanly, even after acquittal.
The Hidden Sentence
For the falsely accused, the damage is the punishment that arrives before the trial:
- Shrinking Worlds: Years under suspicion, with your name whispered and your social circles collapsing.
- Total Loss: Careers erased, relationships broken, and reputations shredded beyond repair.
- Dismantled Lives: Bail conditions that quietly strip away your freedom for months or years.
- Testing Credibility: Trials that turn on theater and interpretation rather than testable proof.
When the system gets it wrong, it rarely admits it with speed or humility. Appeals move slowly. Reviews take years. The man sits in limbo, while the public narrative keeps marching as if the guilt is already a settled fact.
“Miscarriages of justice aren’t only bad convictions. They are the whole machinery that makes innocence feel irrelevant, and makes doubt feel like a nuisance.”
The 2026 Outlook
We expect 2026 to be sold as a fresh start. We will hear words like “Clarity,” “Confidence,” and “Two Verdicts.”
Removing the “Not Proven” verdict changes the psychology of the room. It makes acquittal feel like a statement jurors may be afraid to own.
When proof is thin and the story is everything, removing the middle ground makes doubt socially expensive for a jury.
What must we demand now?
If Scotland insists on removing safeguards, the public must demand the ones that actually protect innocence: Early disclosure, rigorous testing of credibility, and real consequences for investigative corner-cutting.
“Victim-centred” cannot mean “proof-optional.” If it does, it isn’t reform—it’s managed injustice.