IN 2013, a woman known as Miss M was raped while on a night-out in Fife. Two years later, when her case was taken to a High Court trial, the jury reached a verdict of not proven. Recounting how she felt when this news was delivered, Miss M said: "It was an insult to the trauma I had been through and to the tenacity I had shown over the last two years … the not proven verdict felt like I had been given a life sentence.” Scotland is highly unusual in allowing juries to reach a not proven verdict in criminal trials. Dubbed “that bastard verdict” by Sir Walter Scott, it is often perceived as an acquittal laced with a spicy caveat: we actually think you did it, but the evidence isn’t quite there. Not surprisingly, it’s a verdict reached disproportionately in rape and attempted rape cases where open-and-shut evidence is notoriously difficult to obtain. Victims are left with a lack of closure, a mistrust of the justice system and a sense of shame; if only they’d tried harder, if only they’d had more proof. As if they weren’t already blaming themselves enough.