Campaigners have called for disgraced rugby star Stuart Hogg to be stripped of his MBE after admitted to abusing his estranged wife over the course of five years.
Women’s right advocates have called on the government to strip the one-time rugby hero of his honour. Rape survivor Ellie Wilson said he should lose his MBE while, bosses at Women’s Aid claimed his soft-touch community sentence was not “meeting the test of being proportionate”.
The former Scotland and Glasgow Warriors player was awarded an MBE in last year’s New Year Honours list but pleaded guilty to a single charge of domestic abuse of his ex-partner, Gillian Hogg, when he appeared at Selkirk Sheriff Court on November 4. He admitted shouting and swearing, tracking her movements and sending her messages which were alarming and distressing in nature.
Sheriff Peter Paterson sentenced Hogg to a community payback order with one year of supervision and a second five-year non-harassment order when he appeared at the same court for sentencing on Thursday.
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Hogg has already been banned from approaching or contacting Mrs Hogg for five years after he admitted breaching bail conditions by repeatedly contacting her in June last year, when one night she received 28 texts from him.
Sheriff Paterson handed him the first five-year non-harassment order when he sentenced him for the bail conditions breach at Jedburgh Sheriff Court on December 5, and also fined him £600, with an additional £40 victim surcharge.
Stuart Hogg was arrested and taken to a police station after the Calcutta Cup
Hogg was also due to be sentenced on the domestic abuse charge last month but Sheriff Paterson deferred sentence until Thursday for clarification on whether a community order with remotely monitored supervision could be imposed, as Hogg now lives abroad where he plays for French club Montpellier.
Ms Wilson told the Scottish Daily Mail: “They’re supposed to reward people that have given back, are good role models, have made change. Having someone who has been convicted of domestic abuse with an MBE, just cheapens the award.”
The justice campaigner was raped by Daniel McFarlane while they were students at the University of Glasgow and after he was jailed for five years in 2022 she started her crusade.
Domestic abuse is called ‘intimate terrorism’
Dr Marsha Scott, chief executive of Scottish Women’s Aid, added: “Coercive control is the foundation upon which domestic abuse is built, exerting a profound and lasting toll on survivors’ mental, emotional and physical wellbeing.
“This is why domestic abuse is often called ‘intimate terrorism’, which reflects the relentless tactics abusers use to dominate, manipulate and control their partners, creating a prison of fear that is invisible to those just looking for a physical injury.”
“The sentence in this case, like so many handed down in Scotland, hardly meets the test of being proportionate when compared to the harm this man has caused.”
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