Police officer raped two women and abused a third

Police officer raped two women and abused a third

He 'carried out deliberate and repeated acts of abuse against women'.

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A former police officer has been sentenced to 10 years in prison after being found guilty of violent and non-recent sexual offences against women. Cameron Ross, 39, was sentenced on Thursday, 2 July, for the offences that took place in Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis in 2012 and 2014 and Inverness between 2019 and 2022.

He had denied charges, but had been found guilty at the High Court in Edinburgh on Monday, May 25, where he was also sentenced. During the trial, the court heard how Ross raped the first woman after they met at a party on Lewis between August and October 2012. A second woman told the court of how Ross sat on her and restrained her before raping her in June 2014. He went on to subject a third woman to a course of abusive behaviour between October 2019 and June 2022 in Inverness, the court heard. Alongside being found guilty of rape and domestic abuse, the former policeman was also found guilty of attempting to pervert the course of justice and threatening or abusive behaviour, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service said.

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Ross, who resigned from Police Scotland in June 2026, has been placed on the sex offenders register indefinitely.

Faye Cook, Procurator Fiscal for High Court Sexual Offences at the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS), said: “Cameron Ross carried out deliberate and repeated acts of abuse against women over the course of a decade. This was sustained offending, which caused significant harm. As a police officer, he was in a position of trust. Instead of upholding the law, he chose to break it in a serious and persistent way. I would urge anyone affected by similar offending to come forward and report it. The Crown is committed to prosecuting those responsible for sexual and domestic abuse, regardless of who they are.”

Chief Superintendent Helen Harrison, Head of Professional Standards, said: "Ross was a serving officer at the time of these offences and when the report was received in June 2022, we immediately suspended him. He has since resigned from the service. If he had remained, we would have progressed gross misconduct proceedings and he would have been dismissed as his actions and behaviour will not be tolerated in Police Scotland.

"I want to thank those who came forward and recognise how difficult that can be when the perpetrator is a police officer.

"Police Scotland continues to work with survivors’ groups to improve our response to violence against women and girls to embed an approach which places survivors at the heart of our investigation with a trauma-informed approach and we remain committed to further improvement.

"Equally, over a period of years, and advanced by Lady Elish Angiolini's review in 2020, there has been a Scotland wide focus on police ethics, conduct and scrutiny."

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The superintendent also said police "continue to fully engage with those developments to strengthen our safeguarding of policing's integrity and we're working to embed new legislation to continue that improvement".

"We fully accept the onus is on policing to build confidence with members of the public, victims and witnesses to ensure they can report wrongdoing by police officers and staff, and can be confident that robust action will be taken.

“Police Scotland is committed to reviewing its processes, policies, and procedures, which continue to evolve and are shaped by feedback. The ability to handle police misconduct matters in a more robust, timely and transparent way will now also be greatly strengthened by the Police (Ethics, Conduct and Scrutiny) (Scotland) Act 2025,” she said.