Police Scotland have found no evidence to support a surge in claims of spiking by injection

It is reported by the BBC that At a Scottish Police Authority (SPA) meeting held this month, police chiefs were told that between the 12 month period of 1 October 2021 and 30 October 2022, there had been 150 people come forward saying they could have been drugged by needles in Nightclubs but there had been no proven cases of spiking by injection.

In the report presented at the SPA meeting, it was found that during the above 12 month period:

• There were 601 crimes relating to spiking recorded;
• In 31.3% of victims suspected they had been spiked via injection
• From the 601 crimes, after investigations 122 were deemed to be "no crime".
• Of the 479 remaining, a small amount were deemed to involve associated criminality, 32 of which were sexual and three of which were theft.

Assistant Chief Constable Bex Smith states:

"We understand people continue to be concerned about spiking but Police Scotland, working with our partners, has carried out a significant amount of action to increase awareness of the risk, to tackle it and to protect people on a night out.

While we saw an increase in reports and investigations last year, the number of reports has reduced significantly. However, we do continue to investigate reports from people having been 'spiked'.

Our focus remains on keeping people safe and identifying offenders who carry out an assault in this way."

We will continue to monitor these reports.