Women's rights campaigners have demanded that serial domestic abusers be tried in higher courts after disgraced former MSP Bill Walker was jailed for just 12 months for decades of violence.

Mr Walker was give the stiffest jail term available to Edinburgh sheriff Kathrine Mackie after his conviction in summary court last month for a string of attacks against his three former wives and a stepdaughter between 1967 and 1995.

Scottish Women's Aid manager Lily Greenan said summary court trials were appropriate for a single act of common assault, but repeatedly assaulting a partner or several partners was "a different kind of crime with a significantly greater impact.