A Perthshire campaigner attended a Holyrood debate about toughening sentences for abusers while on bail for child sex crimes.
Nicola Murray also made social media posts throughout her trial, moaning about judicial corruption.
The high-profile domestic abuse activist was found guilty of a two-decade-long litany of offences towards children by a jury at Edinburgh Sheriff Court on Tuesday.
Murray is a prominent campaigner and set up the Brodie’s Trust support group that advocated for women who have lost babies through domestic violence or forced termination.
She set up the group after suffering a miscarriage and introduced a petition to create an offence that enables courts to hand down longer sentences for violent domestic abusers who cause their victims to lose their babies.
The trust was shut down last week as Murray was on the brink of being convicted.
The Courier can reveal Murray was on bail in connection with the child abuse charges on May 2, 2024, when she attended a Scottish Parliament debate in which her law change was discussed.
This was 15 months after she first appeared in court, on petition on January 27, 2023, accused of the sick conduct.
Murray hit headlines when she attended the Holyrood hearing after she lodged a petition calling for the creation of an Unborn Victims of Violence Act.
Decades of abuse
The 46-year-old, now a convicted sex offender, will be sentenced in May after being assessed by social workers.
She was found guilty of three charges of assault, two sexual assaults, two of indecent communication, one indecent assault and two offences of behaving in a threatening or abusive manner, all between December 2002 and August 2022.
Murray forced one child to view an explicit sexual image she had taken of a man she was dating and indecently assaulted another after stripping them naked.
She accused one child of causing her to suffer a miscarriage and restricted the breathing of another by smothering their face with a pillow.
She attacked the children by punching, kicking and slapping them to the head and body over several years, while she also repeatedly pushed one youngster down a flight of stairs.
Further disturbing incidents saw Murray drag a young child out of a top bunk bed onto the floor and brand another child “a tranny” after they had styled their hair to look like their favourite pop star Pink.
Social media posts
Shortly after the jury returned its verdict, Brodie’s Trust posted on social media it would be ending its service, in a message signed by “N”.
The statement read: “I am heartbroken to announce that with immediate effect Brodie’s Trust Support Group will no longer operate.
“I am truly grateful for all the support for the campaign for Brodie’s Law and raising awareness of the harrowing issues surrounding domestic abuse in pregnancy.
“My undying solidarity with all survivors, always.”
Another statement added: “Empathy, trust and victim-focused service is at the heart of what we stand for.”
On the first day of her trial, Murray rambled on a social media site about corruption in Scottish courts and spuriously claimed survivors are ordered not to discuss abuse in court.
She posted: “(The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service) like to pretend everything is working as it should. It is not.
“There is no justice for victims in Scotland. I’m not willing to pretend otherwise.
“We have a judicial system in Scotland where women are told that they must not mention domestic abuse or sexual violence because ‘it gets murky’ and ‘sheriffs don’t like it’.
“I’m at point where I really couldn’t give a tiny rats a*** what a sheriff feels.
“Grow up and start doing what you keep pretending to the press and the government that you do: take domestic abuse and sexual violence seriously!”
Still pleading innocence
Murray’s posts continued over the weekend break during her trial.
On March 22, she posted a link to an audiobook with the caption: “Be prepared to be shocked if you’re not already familiar with the corruption within the judiciary in Scotland.”
Following her conviction, remorseless Murray tweeted: “The justice system didn’t keep me safe.”
She added: “Miscarriages of justice happen. I maintain my innocence.”
Murray said she is appealing her conviction and making a report about a person for “perverting the course of justice.”
“I’m an innocent person fitted up…The legacy I built up in memory of my boy all destroyed. Seven years of work gone!”
Law push
Murray became involved in advocating for women who have lost pregnancies due to domestic abuse after experiencing it first-hand.
She was six weeks pregnant in 2013 when her ex, whose abusive behaviour she had previously reported to police, caused her to lose her unborn child.
After she broke up with him, Murray’s then-partner flew into a fit of rage.
“I got dragged five or six feet across the road. I suffered grazes and cuts, bit of glass were embedded into my legs, arms and my face as well,” she told The Courier.
The day after the incident, she miscarried.
While the man was prosecuted, pleading guilty to culpable and reckless conduct in 2014, he was ordered to pay compensation.
This sparked Murray into pushing for a change in legislation to provide for courts to hand out tougher sentences to perpetrators whose abuse causes a miscarriage, still birth or forces a woman to terminate a pregnancy against her will.
