Our ongoing quest to discover just who is actually willing to take responsibility for the actions of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) with regard to the trial of Alex Salmond and its aftermath took another diversion yesterday when we received a reply from HM Inspectorate of Prosecutions in Scotland.
It had sounded like a promising lead. After all, HMIPS’ apparent purpose is to “inspect the operation” of COPFS, “improve the way COPFS serves the public” and “make COPFS more accountable”, all of which are exactly what we were after.
We’ve received a response from the Scottish Government to our follow-up letter of last week regarding the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. It’s attached below.
With commendable swiftness, we’ve received a reply to our letter of earlier this week to the Cabinet Secretary for Justice. You can read it in full below (click to enlarge).
Sadly, however, it’s precisely the sort of evasion we expected, and it is not acceptable.
We thought readers might be interested in a small update on yesterday’s post. As we told you, Graham Shields – the Head of Strategic Communications and Engagement at the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service who fobbed off our complaint about newspapers enabling the identification of sexual assault accusers – was the editor of the Evening Times until he was let go in December 2017.
Which is just two months after this happened:
So you’d think that if anyone knew what jigsaw identification looked like, he would.
It’s now more than a month since this site revealed the widespread breach by a number of Scottish journalists/newspapers – the most prominent being Dani Garavelli of Scotland On Sunday and Tortoise Media – of the legally-protected anonymity of one of the accusers in the Alex Salmond trial.
Until last week we’d had no response from the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) beyond an initial acknowledgement, and no action of any kind had apparently been taken against any of the perpetrators, even though the pro-Salmond blogger Craig Murray has been cited for prosecution for allegedly similar breaches.
Alarmingly, all of the information identifying the woman was (and at the time of writing this article is) still publicly available in their articles, exposing her to possible danger. So last week we got in touch with the COPFS to seek clarification.
Today a mostly-female jury drawn from the most Unionist city in Scotland and directed by a female judge delivered the only verdict it was credibly possible to reach on the (total absence of) evidence before it: that Alex Salmond was not guilty of any crime.
After two weeks hearing an assortment of lurid allegations from former friends and colleagues hidden behind cloaks of public anonymity, the jury – having been advised by the prosecuting counsel that they were the sole arbiters of fact – decided that there was no truth to them.
Since the two most serious charges, in particular, were both matters of the accuser’s word against that of the accused, and the two parties gave completely irreconcilable accounts of the facts (rather than competing interpretations of agreed events), it can only be the case that one side was lying absolutely, and the jury decided that it was the anonymous accusers who were doing so.
It remains to see whether there will be a legal reckoning for those lies. But more than one sort of reckoning will surely follow from these events.
Particularly alert readers may recall this excellent documentary from 2017, exposing how Labour’s PFI scandal has cost the Scottish taxpayer countless billions of pounds and crippled local government for decades with its extortionate financial legacy, as illustrated by the case of North Ayrshire.
Well, now there’s another one of it.
The title is self-explanatory, and it’s worth half an hour of your time.
This, frankly, is something that we should have done years before now. But it’s never too late to start.
One of the most annoying and undemocratic things about modern politics is the ease with which MPs and candidates can simply ignore the electorate. I’ve attempted to politely ask my own MP, Wera Hobhouse of the Liberal Democrats, a question on several occasions and had only dead air in response, and many readers report similar from their own representatives.
What that means, among other things, is that it can be impossible to have any idea what someone stands for on a given issue before you vote for them. And that’s plainly unacceptable in a democracy.
However, when there’s an election on, there’s something you can do about it.
Lorna Campbell on The Secondhand Amendment: “It is the baleful influence that the ‘trans’ issue/lobby is having, apparently, on so many people in positions of trust…” Jan 19, 18:08
Lorna Campbell on The Secondhand Amendment: “Very well said, sir. So many lies and delusions and half-truths surround the ‘trans’ issue that it needs to have…” Jan 19, 18:04
Sven on The Secondhand Amendment: “I doubt in this potential scenario that Mr Murrell would give evidence against any other defendant, as far as I’m…” Jan 19, 18:03
Nae Need! on The Secondhand Amendment: “I’ll say it, cos as far as I am aware no one else has passed comment on this: the USA…” Jan 19, 17:59
Lorna Campbell on The Secondhand Amendment: “Excellent piece again, Rev. Puts all the points that require to have light shone upon them. I never believed that…” Jan 19, 17:56
agentx on The Secondhand Amendment: “A plea bargain to give evidence against whom? I’m thinking about this: “The brother-in-law of Scotland’s former first minister Humza…” Jan 19, 17:53
Nae Need! on The Secondhand Amendment: “If that kinda thing is a legal possibility in Scotland, then yeah. And what we know of Scotland’s institutions is…” Jan 19, 17:47
Nae Need! on The Secondhand Amendment: “Talking of Nigel, did you know he’s currently in DAVOS? Annual WEF Conference is currently underway. Is he there to…” Jan 19, 17:40
Sven on The Secondhand Amendment: “What is the betting that Mr Murrell takes a plea bargain in bar of trial and no details are ever…” Jan 19, 17:30
Lorna Campbell on Learning Insanity: “James, that is not what her speech to the newly-created British parliament states, and nor is it the majority view…” Jan 19, 17:17
Nae Need! on The Secondhand Amendment: “That’s why he already described it as ‘lazy’. Not that you are wrong in offering further detail.” Jan 19, 17:11
Hatey McHateface on The Secondhand Amendment: ““Murder is murder whether by axe or by guillotine or by a government’s austerity policy or a social security sanction…” Jan 19, 17:08
Nae Need! on The Secondhand Amendment: “It’s something. A scrap, a morsel . . . the first separation away from the ‘flock’ of a sacrificial lamb,…” Jan 19, 17:05
Hatey McHateface on The Secondhand Amendment: “£20 says this goes nowhere before the May 2026 HR election.” Jan 19, 17:02
Northcode on The Secondhand Amendment: “Aye, Sam. David Walsh’s Youtube video is a real eye-opener for Scots and ither folk roond the world. I, of…” Jan 19, 16:52
agentx on The Secondhand Amendment: ““Former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell will appear in court next month for a preliminary hearing, the Crown Office has…” Jan 19, 16:48
Nae Need! on The Secondhand Amendment: “Yes, I agree. Thank you to you both. I suspected Stu was going to write a piece on this from…” Jan 19, 16:41
Nae Need! on The Secondhand Amendment: “You make some very good points. Your second last paragraph begs the questions: Does Walker already know something we don’t?…” Jan 19, 16:32
Hatey McHateface on The Secondhand Amendment: “Surely you should be writing “murthered”, Northy? Or do you delight in murdering logical consistency? Whatever, don’t take this as…” Jan 19, 16:31
Nae Need! on The Secondhand Amendment: “Yes indeed, yet more infuriating masquerading. And as Northcode says – fuckuppery by design. I’ve been reading some excellent articles…” Jan 19, 15:47
sam on The Secondhand Amendment: “Northcode You said,”Scotland is being murdered…” Recommend you do a search for “youtube, social murder, david walsh”” Jan 19, 15:12
Alf Baird on The Secondhand Amendment: ““Can it be any wonder Scotland and the Scots are in such poor condition given the battering they’ve been taking…” Jan 19, 13:39
Northcode on The Secondhand Amendment: ““… the woefully inadequate levels of accountability and transparency across all of Scotland’s establishment and civic society…” The monumental fuck-up…” Jan 19, 13:03
Frank Gillougley on The Secondhand Amendment: “Brilliant! Thank you Rev for having the gift of succinctly rising above the obfuscatory legal minutae and calling out the…” Jan 19, 12:22
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh on Learning Insanity: “Back in May 2014 I wrote replies to negative reviews of Doug Gay’s above-mentioned ‘HONEY FROM THE LION’ book by…” Jan 19, 12:09
Anton Decadent on The Secondhand Amendment: “Thank you both for bringing this to light. It looks as if the plan is to bullshit, lie and bluster…” Jan 19, 12:04
Michael P on The Secondhand Amendment: “I speak as an English Barrister who has followed this wretched story and is dismayed/bamboozled by it. I do not…” Jan 19, 12:03
SilentMajority on Learning Insanity: “A very surprising moment on GMB earlier this morning…there were two of the Darlington nurses being interviewed (approx 0730am) by…” Jan 19, 11:53
Alf Baird on The Secondhand Amendment: “And so we return, as inevitably we must, to the reality of life in a colonial society, where assimilated elites…” Jan 19, 11:10
