Police Scotland campaign encourages men to have a quiet word to prevent sex crimes [Video]

A new police campaign encouraging young men to “have a quiet word with a mate” if they see them acting inappropriately towards women has been launched.

The Police Scotland ThatGuy campaign, which will run for six weeks across social media channels and through a podcast series, comes amidst a rise in the number of sexual offences being reported to officers.

Police said they received nearly 7,600 reports of sexual crimes between April 1 and the end of September, a 3.2% increase compared with the same period the year before.

This figure includes 1,400 reported rapes, a rise of 19.5% on the same period the year before.

Some 1,829 of the reported offences, including 550 of the rapes, were alleged to have happened more than a year ago, with the remainder relating to the last 12 months.