Jamie Hamilton

Introduction

Jamie Hamilton is a 41-year-old Scottish man who was found guilty of two charges under section 1 of the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018, committed against two different women, and sentenced to fifty-four months in prison. The abuse he inflicted was sustained, controlling and violent — including repeated strangulation — and its final chapter is among the gravest documented in such a sentencing statement: hours after police removed Hamilton from her home, the second victim took her own life. Sentencing him on 16 September 2026, Sheriff Guy said Hamilton’s position at trial and since amounted “essentially” to victim blaming, and that he had shown no appropriate insight or remorse even for the conduct he accepted .

Background Information

The first victim was in a relationship with Hamilton between 1 August 2020 and 30 January 2023. The abuse began psychologically: false accusations of unfaithfulness, searching her social media messages without permission, questioning her about who she contacted, and contacting those people to accuse them of trying to start a relationship with her. He made negative and derogatory comments that caused her significant psychological harm. The second relationship began on 1 January 2023 and lasted until 24 July 2024, and followed what the sheriff called a strikingly similar pattern — this time against a woman who had been open with him about her mental health difficulties and who had two children, then aged eight and thirteen. She saw her close friends far less frequently and, as her mental health deteriorated during the relationship, lost custody of her children .

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Convicted of abusing two partners with strangulation and degradation under the Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act; jailed for fifty-four months.

The violence against the first victim began on 16 June 2022, when Hamilton threw her to the floor of her home so that she struck her head, pressed down on her chest with his knuckles, and strangled her with his other hand so she could not breathe for between ten and twenty seconds — shouting that he was going to “punch her c*** in” and kill her. He assaulted her again that night as she asked him to leave: thrown to the floor, strangled for around twenty seconds, punched on the head. Afterward he kicked and damaged the door trying to force his way back in, and broke a window. On 30 September 2022, while the couple were on holiday, he threw her to the floor again, repeatedly kicked her, poured a can of cider over her as she lay in pain, and threw her clothes out of the hotel room .

Against the second victim, Hamilton pulled her to the ground, slapped her head and strangled her to her injury and the danger of her life on 21 October 2023 — she told the court she thought he was going to kill her, and he later told her he had not wanted to stop strangling her. Then, on 16 July 2024, he sent a sexual photograph of the first victim to her father, her sister and — most egregiously, in the sheriff’s words — her fourteen-year-old daughter, with a message saying “this is what she is doing”; Hamilton accepted doing this during his evidence. Shortly afterward the second victim was admitted to hospital as her mental health declined; on her release she contacted Hamilton, who punched her unconscious. Neighbours overheard the assault. He then questioned her about someone she had contacted and strangled her again, forcing his hands into her throat to her injury and danger of her life. A few hours after police took him away, she took her own life .

Public Reaction and Consequences

Sheriff Guy assessed Hamilton’s culpability and the harm and risk of harm as high on both charges. Character references spoke to him being a good father, and he had never previously served a prison sentence — mitigation the court took into account, but which it found outweighed by the seriousness of the offending. The sheriff considered whether to remit the case to the High Court, citing the appellate emphasis on the seriousness of manual strangulation in domestic relationships as an “insidious and serious form of abuse,” and concluded that separate sentences of thirty and forty-eight months would both exceed his powers and be disproportionate. He imposed a single sentence of fifty-four months, commencing 20 August 2026 when Hamilton was remanded into custody, with an indefinite non-harassment order protecting the first victim .

Current Status

Hamilton is serving a fifty-four-month prison sentence imposed on 16 September 2026, backdated to his remand on 20 August 2026. He remains bound by a non-harassment order preventing any contact with the first victim for an indefinite period. The second victim died by suicide hours after his arrest; the sentencing statement records her death in the factual narrative of the case. The published remarks note he “maintained denial to almost all the matters” found proved by the jury .

Impact on Their Career/Life

The verdicts and the published sentencing remarks now permanently record Hamilton’s abuse of two women — the strangulations, the degradations, and the sending of an intimate image of one victim to her own teenage daughter. The first victim’s life was dismantled by violence across three years; the second lost her children, her health and, within hours of his arrest, her life. Hamilton begins his first custodial sentence at forty-one with the court’s finding that his post-trial posture is victim blaming, without the insight or remorse the sheriff identified as absent .

Sources

• “HMA v Jamie Hamilton” — Judiciary of Scotland sentencing statement, 16 September 2026: source