When Tribes Replace Standards: Due Process in Scotland’s Online Justice Wars

Recent reporting quotes Police Scotland as saying Ellie Wilson has been arrested and charged in connection with alleged domestic abuse-related offences and released on an undertaking to appear at Glasgow Sheriff Court in April 2026. That fact alone settles nothing about guilt or innocence. It tells us only that an allegation will be tested in court.

This is precisely where a healthy civic instinct should assert itself. A charge is not proof. The presumption of innocence is not a slogan; it is the restraint that separates justice from the appetite of a crowd.

Yet, Scotland’s online discourse increasingly treats that restraint as tribal property. It is invoked passionately when it shields “our side”, and dismissed as suspicious when it shields “their side”. This is not just unpleasant argument. It trains the public to confuse accusation with conclusion and makes it harder for the justice system to retain legitimacy in emotionally charged cases.

A principle that must be person-blind

Most people will say they believe in due process. The problem is not what we claim in the abstract, but how consistently we apply it.

When a man is accused, particularly of a sexual offence, the presumption of innocence is often treated as an irritant. Those who insist on proof can be portrayed as morally suspect for even asking for it. Yet when an allegation falls on a figure associated with approved causes, many of the same spaces suddenly rediscover restraint, fairness, and the need to “wait for court”.

The second instinct is the correct one. The question is why it so often fails to travel.

This is not party politics. It is in-groups and out-groups.

The phrase “identity politics” can mislead here, as if this were simply about party alignment or ideology. The deeper mechanism is more basic and more human: in-groups and out-groups.

We grant moral generosity to “our people” and moral suspicion to “their people”, often without noticing we are doing it. The same fact — “a person has been charged” — is processed as a call for patience when it threatens our in-group, and as confirmation when it threatens our out-group.

In a criminal justice setting, that is not a harmless bias. It is a moral hazard. If the presumption of innocence applies only to the socially approved, it ceases to be a principle and becomes a reward.

Why online tribes matter to real-world justice

People often say that social media is not a courtroom. That is true, but incomplete.

Online pressure shapes what journalists feel safe to question, what institutions fear being accused of, and what witnesses fear will happen if they contradict a dominant narrative. It also shapes what jurors may think they already “know” before they hear a single piece of evidence.

This is confirmation bias in action. Once we’ve labelled someone “one of us” or “one of them”, we instinctively notice what confirms that label and discount what challenges it. Online this produces certainty; in a trial-adjacent culture it risks pre-loading people’s judgement before evidence is properly tested.

In a relatively small and highly networked public sphere like Scotland’s, reputational pressure can be intense. The fear is not only legal; it is social: the fear of being the “wrong type of person” for asking the “wrong type of question”. That fear is the enemy of truth-seeking.

The clean test this moment offers

Because this is a high-profile case, it offers a simple test of whether we are capable of principle rather than reflex.

If your instinct is to say, “A charge is not proof; we must wait for court,” you are thinking in the only way a liberal society can afford to think.

Now apply the same sentence to the man you dislike, the man you distrust, the man whose politics offend you, the man you have never met, the man accused of something that makes you recoil. If your commitment to due process evaporates at the point of disgust, then it was never a principle. It was a mood.

A society cannot run on selective standards

Here is the uncomfortable truth: if we treat due process as a privilege granted only to the “right” people, it becomes a weapon. It is used to protect friends and to destroy enemies.

That is how miscarriages of justice become normal. Not usually through conspiracy, but through culture: through the slow erosion of the idea that proof matters more than applause.

The presumption of innocence is not a compliment paid to the virtuous. It is a restraint placed on power, including the power of crowds, headlines, and moral certainty.

A charge is not proof.

Either Scotland means that for everyone, or it does not mean it at all.

By Accused.scot

Accused.scot is an independent, volunteer-run platform focused on fairness, due process, and evidence-led discussion in the Scottish justice system. We publish commentary and resources on how allegations are investigated and tried, with a strong emphasis on consistent standards and respectful language. For more information see: https://accused.scot

Editorial note: This piece was developed by the team at accused.scot to examine how Scotland’s online discourse can distort due process norms, and what that reveals about our shared commitment to the presumption of innocence.