A Perth mum who lost her baby after her abusive ex hit her with his car is taking her fight for tougher sentences to Holyrood.
Nicola Murray 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, Nicola’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 said in an interview with The Courier.
The day after the incident Nicola miscarried her child.
While the man was prosecuted, pleading guilty to culpable and reckless conduct in 2014, Nicola was left shocked when he was ordered to pay just £300 in compensation.
“It was pathetic,” she said of the sentence, adding: “I thought they would take it more seriously.
“The police who came out to take my statement also spoke to my daughters, all three were present when the incident happened.
“None of that, the trauma to them or the fact that I had miscarried as a result of my injuries, was taken into account.
“As far as the law in concerned that baby didn’t exist because it never drew breath, but it existed to me. I’d known I was pregnant for a full week.”
Scotland only part of the UK with no law for abuse causing a miscarriage
Scotland is the only part of the UK where causing a miscarriage or still birth through violence or abuse in not a specific crime. Abusers are only prosecuted for offences against the victim.
Academics say the gap in the law has left Scotland “ill-equipped” to deal with some of most serious cases of abuse.
Nicola, who lost a second child in 2017, has since discovered that in the five years leading up to 2022, police received more than 7,000 reports of domestic violence where a pregnant women was involved.
The true figure is feared to be much higher because domestic violence is known to be underreported.
‘I want other women to get the justice I was denied’
It has led to her campaign 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.
She will attend a debate in the Scottish Parliament on Thursday afternoon after lodging a petition at Holyrood calling for the creation of a Unborn Victims of Violence Act.
Nicola, who runs a support group for survivors, said: “I found out I am not the only person whose experienced the lack of justice.
“Something has to be done, and if I don’t speak up then I’m relying on someone else to do it. If not me, then who?
“I want to make sure other women have the access to justice that I was denied.”
Jackson Carlaw, convener of the parliament’s Public Petitions Committee, will lead the debate.
In an opinion column for The Courier, Mr Carlaw said his committee was bringing Nicola’s petition to the chamber to “confront the sobering reality” that there silently suffering victims whose voices often go unheard.
Speaking ahead of the debate, Nicola urged MSPs to understand just how many women were suffering while pregnant.
Addressing them, she said: “Understand this is huge. There are so many women in Scotland suffering domestic violence, and suffering while pregnant. For some, that will result in a miscarriage, stillbirth or coerced termination.
“Hear them. Think about them when you’re voting on it. They are real people, real women, and they matter.”
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