Denise Mina's Case Histories

Denise Mina’s Case Histories

Original version

BBC Radio Scotland Extra

Factual: History

Factual: Crime & Justice

Denise Mina - A Life of Crime Writing

Denise takes a look at the most famous and infamous cases in Scottish legal history

BBC Radio Scotland FM

BBC Radio Shetland

BBC Radio Orkney

Denise Mina's Case Histories: The Moorov Doctrine

The Moorov Doctrine

BBC Radio Scotland - Denise Mina's Case Histories, The Moorov Doctrine

Denise takes a look at the most famous cases in Scottish legal history.

Moorov is a unique name cited in Scottish courts every day. To find out why, Denise uncovers a #MeToo story of sexual harassment in the workplace in 1920's Glasgow.

Meet the most notorious sex pest of 1920s Glasgow. Samuel Moorov ran a drapery on Argyle Street with a remarkably high turnover of female machinists. Turns out he couldn’t keep his hands off them. Some of these women were feisty in their rebuttal of his advances, one even knocking him down the stairs, and in true #MeToo fashion, a mutual support group banded together to avoid being alone with him. But that was the trouble. Moorov always caught his staff on their own without witnesses. And in Scottish law you can’t just go on he said she said - you need corroboration in order to make a case. This means you need two pieces of evidence – witnesses or physical evidence – as proof. Why Moorov is so important is that for the first time it was decided that the series of similar accounts by women over a short period of time meant that they could corroborate each other, as together their evidence established a pattern of conduct. The so-called Moorov Doctrine is cited every day in Scottish courts for sexual assault and historical abuse cases, but it is still controversial and there have been moves to abolish it. Denise investigates whether in terms of sexual harassment in the workplace, much has changed.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Denise Mina's Case Histories

The Moorov Doctrine

Genres

Brand

BBC Radio Scotland Extra

About BBC Radio Scotland