Stuart Hogg: The Costs of Leniency towards Coercive Control

This week deals yet another dangerous green light to perpetrators of domestic abuse and a devastating blow to survivors seeking justice.

Stuart Hogg leaving court this week.

Stuart Hogg is poised to return to the rugby field in France and resume his professional career as if nothing ever happened. To lead out his team who hail him as ‘an example’ of leadership. Yet, this is the very same man who, just days ago, was sentenced to a one-year community payback order for domestic abuse against his estranged wife, Gillian.

As abuser Hogg now walks free, having miraculously avoided a custodial sentence following his 5-year campaign of coercive and controlling behaviour, the victims of his crime, his wife and children, now face a harder road ahead; tackling the years psychological trauma he inflicted upon them. This utterly woeful sentence outcome now rightfully raises crucial questions, the very same ones we’ve had for years:

Is coercive control being treated as a serious crime in Scotland, and critically, how does society view this insidious form of domestic abuse?

As a coercive control campaigner, I often review court reports…