Scottish Government's Gender Recognition Reform Bill: Judge's statement after jailing child sex abuser Andrew Miller shows why self-ID is a threat to women and girls – Susan Dalgety

Lord Arthurson says that the young girl who became Andrew Miller’s victim would not have willingly entered his car if he had appeared to be a man

In the end, it was the judiciary that exposed the SNP’s flawed gender reform bill for what it is – a license for predatory and abusive men to pretend to be something they are not, in order to carry out their predatory and abusive behaviour. Earlier this week Lord Arthurson, a pillar of the Scottish establishment, who was appointed a judge in 2017 by the then-First Minster, Nicola Sturgeon, published his sentencing statement after jailing child sex abuser Andrew Miller for 20 years for the horrific abduction and sexual assault of a young girl.

According to Judiciary Scotland, judges may decide to publish a statement after passing sentence on an offender “in cases where there is particular public interest; where a case has legal significance; or where providing the reasons for the decision might assist public understanding”. In this case, Lord Arthurson’s statement met all three criteria, for Miller is a man who has spent much of his recent life masquerading as a woman. The gender reform bill, which has self-ID at its heart, would have allowed him, prior to his conviction, to change his legal sex simply by filling in a form.

But let Lord Arthurson’s words speak for themselves. After describing Miller’s crime as “frankly nauseating in terms of its depravity and criminal sexual deviancy”, he went on to describe the horror of his modus operandi. He wrote: “The mode of abduction itself is also in my view a significantly aggravating feature, if any were needed in such a case, and here to speak plainly I am referring to your female presentation as you invited your victim into your car.

“One only has to ask oneself the simple question: would [a young] girl have willingly entered your car had you presented as a man? The answer is that obviously she would not. Your intentions were wicked and predatory, and clearly involved a substantial component of planning. Indeed, the mode of abduction utilised by you in my opinion entirely supports that proposition when it is seen in the context of your whole conduct in this matter.”

Lord Arthurson could not have been more clear. Miller is an abusive and predatory man who pretended to be something he was not in order to carry out his predatory and abusive behaviour. A terrible fact of life that women have known since time immemorial. Predatory men will pretend to be loving grandfathers, supportive priests, a friendly next-door neighbour, in order to lull their victim – and often their families – into a sense of false security. In Miller’s case, he pretended to be a woman.

Yet only last year, when she stood in our parliament and introduced the gender reform bill, the now Deputy First Minister Shona Robison insisted that such a thing never happened. She said, and I make no apology for repeating these phrases: “There is no evidence that predatory and abusive men have ever had to pretend to be anything else to carry out abusive and predatory behaviour.”

It was, as women, including a former senior civil servant and a leading politician, said at a recent feminist conference, one of the worst comments ever to have been made in Holyrood. Women across the country were aghast that a female politician could make such a cynically wrong-headed assertion about such a sensitive topic, simply to justify a controversial piece of legislation.

Andrew Miller (covered) being led from Selkirk Sheriff Court following an earlier hearing (Picture: Andrew Milligan/PA Wire)

Women like me, who spoke out about their own abuse at the hands of men pretending to be “anything else” were accused of ‘weaponising our trauma’ to make a political point. And the views of women, who warned that any changes to the 2004 Gender Reform Act should be accompanied by strict safeguards to protect women and girls, were sneeringly dismissed by Sturgeon as “not valid”. Does the former First Minister think that Lord Arthurson’s remarks are easily ignored, I wonder? I await her forthcoming “deeply personal and revealing” memoirs with interest.

I am also waiting for Robison’s apology to the women and girls of Scotland, but I suspect I will wait in vain. She brushed off any criticism of her remarks at the time, and nothing she has said or done since suggests she has had second thoughts. She may squirm with embarrassment when questioned about Miller, as happened earlier this year when he was convicted, but she’s not going to admit she was wrong.

When asked by Sky News in May if she stood by her comments, the best she could come up with was: “The vast majority of trans people just want to get on with their lives.” Indeed they do. Just as all women and girls want to go about their daily lives as safely and risk-free as possible. Yet self-ID offers predatory and abusive men the perfect cover to access women’s intimate spaces, to pretend to be something they are not in order to indulge their depravity.

If Robison doesn’t have the political and moral courage to say sorry, then perhaps her boss could show some backbone and withdraw the gender reform bill, which is currently stuck in the courts, after it was blocked by the UK Government which argues that it adversely affects UK-wide equality law.

Surely he has enough on his plate without being forced to proceed with a piece of bad legislation that was, in part, his predecessor’s nemesis. And, First Minister, you don’t have to ditch self-ID because a horde of angry women forced you to change your mind. Do it for the young girl whose courage and resilience, while in the hands of a monster, led directly to him being caught red-handed.

As Lord Arthurson said in his statement, her suffering has been “incalculable and life‑changing”. First Minister, don’t let another young girl suffer as she did, and will for the rest of her life. Just do the right thing.