Aggravation

An aggravation is a feature added to a charge that makes the offence more serious and is likely to lead to a heavier sentence.

An aggravation is added to a charge to show that an offence had a feature making it more serious. Many are statutory aggravations set out in Acts of the Scottish Parliament, such as the domestic abuse aggravation under section 1 of the Abusive Behaviour and Sexual Harm (Scotland) Act 2016, aggravations by prejudice relating to characteristics such as race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or transgender identity under the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021, and offending while on bail. If a statutory aggravation is proved, the court must take it into account when sentencing and usually state how it has affected the sentence. An aggravation is part of the charge, so the accused can dispute it and the prosecution must prove it like the rest of the charge.

Checked as at 25 September 2026. General information only, not legal advice.