Criminal Proceedings Statistics

This section presents Scottish Government data on criminal proceedings related to wildlife crime. Data are presented for people proceeded against, and from a different source to the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service Statistics in the previous section, hence figures are not directly comparable. Note that not every recorded crime leads to a court proceeding.

Where a single court proceeding involves a number of different offences at least one of which concerns wildlife crime, Criminal Proceedings statistics only report it as a wildlife crime where this is the 'main charge'. Although there were 36 prosecutions in 2022-23 where wildlife crime was the main charge, there were a further 91 wildlife offences where it was not the main charge, giving a total of 127 offences.

Figure 5 shows the number of people proceeded against for wildlife crime in Scottish courts in 2022-23 by offence category, where wildlife crime was the main charge.

Figure 5: There were 36 people proceeded against for wildlife related offences in 2022-23. The most common offence category was ‘hunting with dogs’.

People prosecuted in Scottish Courts for wildlife crime offences in 2018-19 to 2022-23, where main charge.

The number of people proceeded against (36) in 2022-23 was substantially higher than the previous year (20), and the average over the four proceeding years (13 per year). This finding might be explained in part by the high number of wildlife crime offences in 2020-21 and recovery from COVID-related court closures, and reduced capacities, in 2020-21 and 2021-22. Data from 2020-2023 should not be used to infer any long-term trends in wildlife crime prosecutions.

The percentage of people proceeded against who were convicted was 69% (25 out of 36 people). In terms of offences, rather than people, the percentage of all offences found guilty was 33% (42 out of 127 offences).

In Figure 6, conviction rates for individual wildlife crime categories (where main charge) have been presented as a five-year average due to the small numbers of proceedings for some categories. This shows that conviction rates vary among these categories, from 33% to 100%, with the 5-year average for all offence categories of 66%. It should be noted that, even with five-year averages, the variability of the data is impacted by relatively small numbers in each category – for example, for deer the 33% conviction rate represents 1 out of 3 people.

Figure 6: The average (5-year) conviction rate for people prosecuted for wildlife crime over 2018-19 to 2022-23 is 66%.

Conviction rates for all prosecutions in Scottish courts for wildlife crime from 2018-19 to 2022-23.

For the 25 people with a charge proven in 2022-23 (where main charge), Figure 7 shows the breakdown of penalties imposed. The most common punishment was a monetary penalty (15 people), followed by a community sentence (7 people).

Figure 7: The most common punishment for a wildlife crime conviction in 2022-23 was a monetary penalty.

People with a charge proved for wildlife crimes in Scottish Courts (where main charge), by main penalty, 2022-23

This is broadly in line with aggregate totals for the five years from 2018-19 to 2022-23 which show that monetary penalties were the most common main penalty for wildlife crimes (35 out of 58 convictions) and no wildlife crime convictions during that period resulted in a custodial sentence.

Looking over a five-year period, the average monetary fine imposed for wildlife crimes (where main charge) was £823, with average fines by category ranging from £349 for fish poaching to £2813 for offences against badgers.

It is not possible to establish the average number of Community Payback Order (CPO) hours as this information is not held in the Criminal Proceedings database.

Further detail: on people and offences proceeded against (2018-19 to 2022-23), conviction rates and penalties (including fines imposed) is included in Tables 17 to 24 of the Tables supporting document.