This was the damage: graffiti (CUNTS) on the pavement; a mother pushing a pram, surrounded and briefly terrified; a visiting tourist from Norway, groped. But as the men moved away from the library, on through town to the abbey, they grew bolder, encouraging each other all over again with their chanting and shouting. At the abbey, one man climbed on to the shoulders of another; they were all having fun; the top man pulled out his spray can and Barbara Anderson, who just happened to be walking her dog through the graveyard on the way to the newsagent to pick up the papers for the museum café, called out, horrified, ‘Get down from there! Get down, you vandals!’ The men turned to look at her. The man with the spray can jumped off his friend’s shoulders. Within seconds Barbara was surrounded; pushed against the wall of the abbey, her dog yapping as hands reached in. Ruth saw it all: the knot of men getting tighter, Barbara’s voice rising in disbelief.

And yet not disbelief either; not completely. Because deep in their hearts everyone knows how fragile the civilised veneer is; how easy to smash to pieces.

RUTH: I wanted to arrest every man who had threatened my women.

Ruth could do very little; the crime rate is negligible in the islands, and as a result there’s a low ratio of police per head of population, compared with other parts of the country. So although she ran at the men with two of her colleagues and got them away from Barbara, and arrested the most obvious perpetrators, the vast majority of the men weren’t even cautioned. Nor did the men stop. They continued on through town. Shop windows were smashed. They tried to set fire to the Islands of Women Study Centre. The fire service was called out. Immediately, the council (controlled, more or less, by Colin Grieves) issued a statement urging the women of the archipelago to keep a low profile until peace had been restored. Ruth, while giving evidence that day, raised the question of official collusion with the rioters. At the end of the day, the judge intervened in person – issuing an injunction to the effect that, until the inquiry had concluded, no visiting men would be allowed to the islands unless they could prove prior residence or legitimate, prearranged reasons for travel. Those moving into the islands to be with family and friends were required to report twice daily to Ayrness police station. Social media accounts of troublemakers were being monitored; trolling would be strictly prosecuted. She would present her preliminary conclusions the following Monday; the report itself would be typed up and delivered in due course, but that might take months. In the meantime, there were a few unambiguous statements which needed to be made.

REPORTER: Is this what you expected?