It took immense courage for domestic abuse victim Jordana Rutherford to come forward in the hope that the man who scarred her for life would be punished.
But when the courts only fined her attacker William Weir, any sense of justice being served was short-lived.
Instead of being jailed, Weir was allowed to buy his way out of his crime with a £1000 fine in compensation.
This was not a speeding offence – it was a brutal, sustained assault on a young woman by her partner.
It is staggering for any court to consider a financial penalty as a fit punishment for such a violent crime.
Scotland prides itself as a country with progressive legislation aimed at coming down hard on domestic abuse.
But such legislation is of no use if perpetrators can simply open their wallets and walk away from their crimes with barely any repercussions.
Handing out fines to men for beating women is no deterrent and it sends out the message that money can make up for violence.
Such a regressive approach from the court will inevitably stop women from participating in a justice process which can be traumatising in itself.
Jordana will bear the emotional and physical scars of this attack for the rest of her life and £1000 will do nothing to ease her suffering.
Only having Weir put behind bars and punished in line with the severity of his crime would have brought Jordana some closure.
It is a true injustice that this paltry punishment has actually compounded her pain.
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Ramp up sanctions
Volodymyr Zelensky did not mince his words when he addressed the UN General Assembly yesterday.
The president of Ukraine accused the Russian government of wanting to turn his country into “silent slaves” and spelled out the widespread looting carried out by Vladimir Putin’s soldiers.
But the worst detail was of the atrocities committed in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha.
Civilians were shot in the street and their bodies left lying until Russian troops retreated.
Zelensky is right when he says Putin will stop at nothing to achieve his bloody objectives in Ukraine.
We can’t stand back and let further war crimes go unpunished.
The UK, United States and European Union must now look at new ways of ramping up sanctions against the Kremlin.
Maximum diplomatic and economic pressure must be put on Putin and his stooges in Moscow to end this terrible war.
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