JK Rowling and Sharron Davies are among those warning about the safety of women and girls in mixed-sex changing rooms – but crime figures in Scotland are unavailable, according to the police
Britain’s mixed-sex changing rooms are putting women and girls at risk, warn campaigners(Image: Getty)
JK Rowling has alerted her 14 million followers on social media to the alarming fact that women and girls in unisex changing rooms are being targeted by sexual predators across England and Wales.
An investigation by the Women’s Rights Network discovered at least 80 sexual assaults, 16 rapes and 65 incidents of voyeurism which were recorded in swimming pools and leisure centres in 2023.
But the Express can reveal that Police Scotland refused to disclose details of sex crimes in similar settings north of the Border, citing the cost of trawling through their online files.
Under the Freedom of Information Scotland Act, the maximum cost of complying with a request is £600. Police Scotland was asked for a breakdown of sexual crimes at swimming pools in each year from 2020 to 2025.
An official with the single force replied: “Unfortunately, I estimate that it would cost well in excess of the current FOI cost threshold of £600 to process your request. I am therefore refusing to provide the information sought in terms of section 12(1) of the Act – Excessive Cost of Compliance.
“By way of explanation, we cannot search by locus as such each sexual crime report would have to be manually assessed for relevance to swimming pools and to crime type.”
Watch the WRN ‘Red Flag’ campaign video
Another attempt to ascertain the number of voyeurism offences in swimming pools or leisure centres was knocked back because the request used a Home Office crime code – which do not apply in Scotland, due to the separate legal system.
Despite this lack of co-operation, the WRN has uncovered multiple examples of sex crimes in mixed-sex ‘village-style’ changing rooms all over Scotland by scouring online reports of convictions.
They include:
- October 2013: Man tried to film a woman changing her clothes at the DG One leisure complex in Dumfries.
- November 2013: Swimming instructor convicted of secretly filming women in schools and leisure centres across eastern Scotland.
- June 2017: Lanark swimming pool lifeguard who tried to take a photo of a woman drying herself in a cubicle escaped a jail sentence.
- June 2019: Naked woman caught pervert spying on her at Carnegie Leisure Centre in Dunfermline.
- May 2025: Paisley man appeared in court charged with committing voyeurism offences at a Greenock swimming pool.
Sharron Davies was a Team GB Amassador for the 2012 Olympics(Image: Getty/Team GB)
In the foreword to the WRN report, former champion swimmer and women’s rights campaigner Sharron Davies said: “Each month 4.2 million people use their local swimming pool and that is to be encouraged. However, women and girls face hidden dangers when using their local pools because mixed-sex changing rooms are proving to be a magnet for sexual predators.
“This report by the Women’s Rights Network (WRN) Sports Group is shocking. Horrendous crimes including rapes, sexual assaults and voyeurism, are occurring daily in our local swimming pool changing facilities – places where females are uniquely vulnerable.”
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