The wife of shamed rugby star Stuart Hogg has blasted the sentence he was given for the domestic abuse he subjected her to – and insisted it is not a punishment. Gillian Hogg hit out after the 32-year-old former Scotland captain, who now plays for French club Montpellier, walked free from court yesterday.
Hogg’s potential sentencing could have included being jailed, given unpaid work, fined, or given an electronic tag and daily curfew over his five-year campaign of abuse. But he was instead placed on a Community Payback Order which will see him supervised by social workers for his crimes, which included tracking Gillian with an app.
He also hounded her with distressing messages, bombarding her with 200 in just a few hours. He was previously handed a five-year non-harassment order and fined £600 for breaching bail conditions. The mother-of-four said: “I feel like Stuart’s had absolutely no punishment. My first thought was, is that it? It’s not enough.
“No sentence will ever be enough for all of the abuse, heartache and pain he put me through for years. It feels like that hasn’t been acknowledged. I’m very happy with the fact that I never need to deal with him, have nothing to do with him for five years. That is a massive relief and I’m just looking forward to moving on in my own life.”
While sentencing, Sheriff Peter Paterson excused Hogg from attending a March 25 progress review to check he is complying with the supervision. He told Jedburgh Sheriff Court: “I am going to impose a community payback order with supervision. There will be a review of that on the 25th March.
“As far as the order is concerned I have no doubt Mr Hogg will comply. The reason why I think a review is appropriate is that it is an unusual order. I want to be satisfied that the order is working satisfactorily. It may be that if I receive a satisfactory review report then we can excuse Mr Hogg’s attendance at the hearing because there is no point in interrupting his career.”
Speaking to The Scottish Sun, Gillian, 38, added: “His career should never have been brought up.” Calls have now been made that Hogg is stripped of his MBE. He previously pleaded guilty to a single charge of domestic abuse between 2019 and 2024. The court heard he hounded her for “not being fun” after opting out of drinking binges with him and pals.
Prosecutor Drew Long said his “behaviour deteriorated” as he went out partying after the family moved to England when he joined Exeter Chiefs in 2019. He said that her family “noticed a change in her”. Three years later while on a night out she was flooded with messages from the shamed star which “caught the attention of the people she was with”, the court heard.
Hogg used an app to track his wife and “questioned her whereabouts” after they moved to Hawick, Roxburghshire, in 2023. Gillian decided to leave the dad of her four kids and sought advice from a domestic abuse service. She suffered a panic attack that September after he bombarded her with 200 texts “despite being asked to leave her alone”.
Cops were called due to the family home last February due to the disgraced ex-Glasgow Warriors full-back “shouting and swearing”. He was bailed but ordered not to contact Gillian or enter her pad. Hogg had been due to be sentenced on the domestic abuse charge last month.
But Sheriff Paterson deferred sentence until Thursday for clarification on how the community order could work while he lived abroad. Hogg’s lawyer Angela Gray KC told the court in December he will be remaining in France until at least March. He announced his retirement from professional rugby in July 2023.
But he announced a comeback last summer, signing a two-year contract with the French side, after being awarded an MBE for services to the sport last year’. Last night, SNP Westminster chief Stephen Flynn said on X, formerly Twitter: “He should be stripped of his MBE.”
Dr Marsha Scott, of Scottish Women’s Aid, said: “We have a long history of sentencing domestic abuse perpetrators to what are really quite trivial sentences. I can’t imagine that anyone would think that a £600 fine and a year’s worth of supervision is proportionate to a regime of terror for five years.”
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