A judge has sparked a furious reaction by suggesting Karen Buckley “put herself in a vulnerable position” the night she was killed.
District Judge Nigel Cadbury made the comments last week, the day after the 21-year-old’s body was found near Glasgow.
The judge was speaking as he sentenced another woman for assaulting a woman outside a bar, where he said he found the amount of alcohol drank by young women “very, very worrying”.
Friends of Miss Buckley said she only had a few drinks before leaving a club and there is no suggestion she was drunk, however, Judge Nigel Cadbury said: “I find it incredible that young people can get so drunk that they don’t even know who they’re with.
“One only has to think about the horrible situation in Glasgow to see how serious this could have been. It’s very, very worrying how young girls put themselves in such very, very vulnerable positions.”
Campaigners have hit out at the judge’s comments, Sarah Green, acting director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition, said: “District Judge Nigel Cadbury seems to be perpetuating the idea that young women drinking alcohol put themselves at risk of attack.
“Even if it is not meant, this implies that sexual violence is in some way inevitable and it is women’s responsibility to avoid it. It makes the perpetrators of these crimes all but invisible.
“We have to get beyond this focus on women’s behaviour regarding rape and shift it to the men who choose to commit these crimes. Because violence against women is not inevitable.”