A CAREFREE student on a night out in St Andrews in 2013, her life was to be turned upside down following a meeting with a man who she claimed raped her, although he denied it and was later cleared on a not proven charge.

Miss M, the name she has since used for anonymity, would go on to win a civil case against Stephen Coxen, of Bury, Greater Manchester, before campaigning for the verdict to be abolished from Scottish courts.

With the not proven verdict, a thorny issue for centuries, and the subject of numerous reviews and campaigns in the past 50 years, again a national talking point, Miss M spoke exclusively last week to the Sunday National.

“After my civil case I thought I’ve got justice, I’ve got closure for myself, but what am I going to do that’s going to help other women in Scotland?

“The more I spoke to people who supported me, they all had differing views on what the not proven verdict meant, and I was at university, I wasn’t stupid, and I realised that people didn’t actually know what this was.

“And I thought, I’m going to invest all my time. I was working full time but I spent all my spare time working on my case and now I was going to spend all my time working on this campaign.

“And my spare time was meeting politicians, meeting legal advisers, meeting the solicitors who used to be acting for me. Speaking to some politicians, I found that they knew of not proven but never really came across it in their line of work, and therefore didn’t really understand how big the problem was.

“So then I started speaking to other survivors that I was supporting and I felt, why am I so frustrated that he was found not proven? And everybody is telling me that not proven is the best thing and much better than not guilty.

“I’d heard from one person who was very eloquent and they said it felt like a comma and not a full stop and that’s a very common theme because it puts the onus back on the victim.

“And not proven has nothing to do with the evidence but has everything to do with common misperceptions of rape and has everything to do with victim-blaming and not the consequences of the survivor, and that is what we are trying to highlight in this campaign.

“Personally, what happened to me was so bad that I could never comprehend anything being as bad as that. But I have heard from a lot of people that personally for them the court system felt like they had been abused again.”

Miss M is heartened by recent Scottish Government research into the not proven verdict and the all-party support for a review of it.

She added: “What helps in the meetings that I have with politicians now is that there is this research, there are great problems here, and we’re still using it.

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“And for the poor survivors who have trials coming up and who have reached out to me, it’s that we’re using something that is set up to fail survivors, it’s not allowing them to have fair trials, that it is being used disproportionately and that there is a misunderstanding.”

Miss M goes as far as to say that the third Scottish verdict is the worst of all worlds.

She said: “People need to realise why people are choosing not proven. They’re thinking they’re giving something back to the victim – and especially for crimes of such a difficult and intimate nature where there are hardly any witnesses; that it’s a cop-out, that they think they are giving something to the victim but it’s actually worse for us than not guilty.”

Miss M found the justice she had sought from the civil courts and believes that shone a further light on the failings of the not proven verdict and the criminal justice system.

She added: “What really bothered me was that I got the not proven verdict and people kept saying that there just wasn’t enough evidence to convict, that they believed you but there just wasn’t enough evidence.

“At the criminal trial the surgeon who treated me, they weren’t called so they can’t discuss the surgery that I had and the injuries that were inflicted, without the surgeon. And I was failed in that the surgeon wasn’t called and the evidence wasn’t heard.

“And the civil case allowed me to have the evidence heard and we had more people. And how horrific was that that I had to get this together myself and be so proactive that I was going to get the right people, the right evidence and have my hearing again but with a lower burden of proof, and that with a lower burden of proof we had more evidence?”

MISS M reflects on how things could have been different in the criminal case.

She said: “I was supposed to have my case in April 2016 and then they pulled it forward by five months till November 2015 and then we didn’t have enough time, the surgeon wasn’t going to come to trial.

“In speaking to me he said he was willing to come and then he wasn’t called. So, for me I was an 18-year-old, sitting in a court waiting room thinking that my surgeon might turn up and then being told the case is now closed and they’re now going out for deliberation.’’

Miss M is hoping that this renewed spotlight on the abolition of the not proven verdict can be a key part in making it safer for women to report rape.

She said: “I want people to know they can come forward. I know there are a lot of rapes that go unreported. I’ve spoken to a lot of women who have never spoken to police, or family or friends. My message is speak to someone you trust because I tried to live my life without telling anybody and it nearly broke me.”

Miss M would like to see the unique Scottish not proven verdict extinguished and made history.

She said: “We’ve got two acquittal verdicts, and two red lights and one green. I think if you asked any defendants or suspects they wouldn’t disagree with its removal. There is no reasonable argument to keep the not proven verdict.”