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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