In pursuit of clarity
Wings has today sent the following emails.
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The Chief Constable
Police Scotland
5 Fettes Avenue
Edinburgh
EH4 1RB
6 June 2026
Thank you for your (very swift) reply to my letter. However, I am afraid that it leaves more questions than answers.
Firstly, you state that Police Scotland “have been advised” that the information provided had already been investigated. That is rather odd. Who “advised” Police Scotland of this, and why did Police Scotland need to be advised of something which they should already know?
Second, you say that if any new information should be received, “this will be assessed”. I have provided new information, in the form of what has been said, publicly, by the First Minister over the last few days.
That is clearly “new information”: neither he, nor anyone else within the SNP, had disclosed previously that the ring-fenced funds had been spent on other matters. On the contrary, they repeatedly, publicly and stridently argued otherwise. Police Scotland cannot possibly have investigated the legal consequences of the recent public pronouncements by the First Minister himself in the short time that has elapsed since then.
Indeed, it is simply chronologically impossible for the statement in your reply to be true: Police Scotland announced the completion of Operation Branchform on 25 May 2026. The First Minister made his statement on 3 June 2026. How could his comments have been investigated nine days before he made them?
Third, and following on from this, I have provided you with a detailed legal analysis of why there is clear evidence of the commission of one or more crimes. That is also “new information”, unless you saying that that analysis was already available to Police Scotland? That seems rather unlikely.
That legal analysis was based on legal advice, instructed on my behalf and provided by the Dean of the Faculty of Advocates. Doubtless he may have his citations wrong: even Homer nods, after all.
But if Police Scotland is going to decline to exercise its core responsibility for the investigation of crime in Scotland, at the very least one might expect an explanation of why the clear evidence of criminality and the accompanying legal analysis which I have provided is to be ignored.
The matter raised in my letter is of significant public interest. I quite appreciate that whether or not to prosecute is a matter for COPFS, and that their decision in that regard is (probably) not subject to judicial review.
However, an anterior refusal by Police Scotland to decline even to investigate evidence of criminality, at least in the absence of very good reason (and the only reason you have given, that you “have been advised this has already been investigated”, is plainly wrong) would be subject to judicial review. Given the level of public interest in this matter, I have little doubt that such a judicial review could and would be easily funded.
I look forward to hearing from you. Please feel free to take slightly longer to consider your reply this time: I would prefer a reasoned response to a rapid one.
Yours etc,
Rev Stuart Campbell
Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service
25 Chambers Street
Edinburgh
EH1 1LA
6 June 2026
Thank you for your (very swift) reply to my letter. However, I am afraid that it leaves more questions than answers.
It may, in the general run of things, be “for the police or other reporting agency to investigate allegations of criminal conduct”. However, and as I am sure you aware, that is not the end of the story. Crown Office always retains the power to direct the police to investigate. This is made clear by The Law of Criminal Procedure in Scotland (SULI), 1st Ed, at 8-019:
“The position in Scotland is quite different from that in England and Wales (and the US): as previously noted, the Chief Constable of Police Scotland is required by statute to comply with any lawful instruction from a procurator fiscal or the Lord Advocate. The latter can also issue instructions to the Chief Constable “with regard to the reporting, for consideration of the question of prosecution, of offences alleged to have been committed”.”
I have brought to your attention evidence of a crime. It is open to Crown Office to require an investigation. That is what I am asking you to do. If you decline, perhaps you could explain why.
You will be aware of the public interest in this matter, and the need to avoid any suggestion of anything other than the complete independence of Crown Office. Your telegraphic response to my detailed explanation of why (a) a crime seems to have been committed, and (b) the commission of that crime seems to have been admitted by the First Minister himself (by which I mean that his statements suggest a crime has been committed by someone: I know not who was responsible therefor) is unlikely to engender confidence in that independence.
My letter was prepared with legal advice, instructed on my behalf and provided by the Dean of the Faculty of Advocates. Doubtless he may have his citations wrong: even Homer nods, after all.
But if Crown Office is going to decline to exercise its core responsibility for the investigation and prosecution of crime in Scotland, at the very least one might expect an explanation of why the clear evidence of criminality and the accompanying legal analysis which I have provided is to be ignored.
I look forward to hearing from you. Please feel free to take slightly longer to consider your reply this time: I would prefer a reasoned response to a rapid one.
Yours etc,
Rev. Stuart Campbell
Well done Stu
A thing of beauty. Is Roddy still Dean?
Keep going – I agree that the words, ‘have been advised’ stood out like a sore thumb. The SNP are still trying to make out that this is all about the misbehaviour of one embezzler, and the press can only seem to manage to keep an intermittent focus on the ‘ring-fenced’ funds issue. For my money, that arguably more important than the embezzlement because the myriad failures/deliberate acts which gave rise to spending that money were of a piece with the failures that enabled Murrell. It is also the same culture of ‘omerta’ and protection of/obeying Sturgeon at all costs coupled with an ever moveable feast of explanations without proper press scrutiny that has enabled too much corruption by this awful administration.
Great work, Stuart.
Here’s the question I’d like to see answered: “What exactly was investigated during Branchform, and what conclusions were reached regarding the referendum funds?”
Could you put this to both the police and the COPFS..?
What’s stopping you from asking the polis and COPFS these questions?
I remain confident that the police will undertake a new investigation. The responses to the original letters, as I understood them, leave open the door to a new investigation.
We are dealing with complex organisations that have many heads and hands and they are often/always very slow moving.
I have less confidence in the Crown Office since it is structurally more politically sensitive, but even here I have a lot more than no confidence.
Theres a lot of moving parts and through them blows a ferocious political wind; public opinion counts for more than people realise.
Boom.
Go get ‘em boy
Scene: A room within a “Gentleman’s Club” in the St James District of London. Nigel and Jeremy are seated, enjoying coffee and scones>
Nigel – “Jeremy old boy, we have a minor problem in Jockistan. This Reverend Campbell chap – who apparently lives in Bath, is causing the chaps at COPS and Police Scotland some problems and quite frankly Hamish and Murdo are finding it difficult to keep him at bay.”
Jeremy – “I see, lives in Bath you say. Let’s pop along to GCHQ, that’s quite close, have a word with the chaps there and see what we might be able to do to nullify the threat.”
Nigel – “Good thinking old boy. But, might it be time for a sacrifice? Might we consider releasing Agent SeaWeed back into the wild.”
Jeremy – “Don’t feel we’re there yet, but it’s an idea worth keeping in mind.
“I salute your indefatigability”
– but all you are going to get is : “computer says no”
The bizarre nature of all of this – investigation started about one thing, finds something else, goes with that, ignores the original thing, and will not return to it and even claims “advised” the original thing was dealt with … well, its pretty standard with the police, really. The cops are just useless cunts who see investigating crime as a waste of time (when you could be out promoting diversity and hounding people for hate crimes)
The next big thing is going to be : how long does Murrell get?
– if the fix is in and I think it will be, he will set a new record for the most lenient sentence ever in Scotland for that size of crime
if, OTOH, he gets 12 years and his pension and all other assets gutted for payback, it gets interesting as he will feel screwed; he could start singing. A couple of years of easy time in a soft jail lets you hit the gym and catch up on your reading – its a healthfarm with locks on the doors – but then we will never really get to the bottom of it, and the crooks will have won.
Brilliant response Stuart – the pointedness but also sincerity of what you pen is in stark contrast to the weasel word response of the authorities. I don’t think the Police response was AI slop, it’s what now passes as adequate in Scots civic organisations.
I feel a bit more hopeful about the country knowing that there are folk out there trying to correct things when they go wrong inside their professions and industries. When Alec Salmond delivered his evidence at the parliamentary enquiry he stated that the institutions involved hadn’t failed. He thought that it was the leadership of those institutions that have failed. Hopefully he was right. There is a failure of leadership in every Scottish service and public body it seems to me. Maybe this is a learning process. We should never appoint people on the basis of their support for an ideology. In this case I mean the extreme liberalism or fake woke agenda for want of better terms for it. That stands for political beliefs of all kinds, British or Scottish nationalism or the neo-liberalism that dominates today. It should not be a consideration when appointing people to the offices of state, quangoes etc. The evidence is all around us.
They are corrupt. The whole Scottish system is corrupt. The only option is to get Westminster involved, not that anything will come of that, as the corruption is at their behest.
Outstanding response Stuart, and thank you for not letting go of this. Scotland will never reach its full potential until the corruption at the heart of our major institutions has been dragged out into the open and exposed for what it is.
Well done Stu fir this follow.
It will be interesting to see the responses
He’s a good lad that Roddy Dunlop. We all owe him a negroni….or two!
It seems to me all reasonable Scots – whether pro independence or not – should be in favour of getting to the bottom of this whole burach. An independent Scottish state built on the Tammany Hall politics of the current Scottish establishment would fail and deservedly so.
YA BEAUTY
Go get em
If I ever get a rotwieler I’m going to name him Stuart
Is it simply that the Police and Crown Office have always known, and as such, to them this is not new evidence! Is that worse?
Persistence is a huge virtue, much underestimated in these days of the scroll. Via con Dios! Mon amigo fuerte! (Sorry for coming over all treasure of the Sierra madre there) To the sound of stirring music.
You sneaky devil, Rev!
“ … That legal analysis was based on legal advice, instructed on my behalf and provided by the Dean of the Faculty of Advocates. ”
BOOM
Brown trousers and bicycle clips at COPS and Poileas Alba .
“ an anterior refusal by Police Scotland…… would be subject to judicial review. Given the level of public interest in this matter, I have little doubt that such a judicial review could and would be easily funded. ”
BOOM -BOOM
You have them by the short and curlies. (In these days of gender fluidity I hope I am allowed to say that.)
Ok, I Need to have the Homer thing explained…
It’s a reference to a quote from the Roman poet, Horace, Andrea. He said something along the lines of being annoyed when Homer was sleepy, because even the great Homer sometimes made errors in his writing. Referring to characters being alive for instance when they’d already been killed off.
Or, as the Japanese saying has it, “Even monkeys fall out of trees.”
It refers to line 359 of Horace’s Ars Poetica
indignor quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus (“I become annoyed when sometimes the great Homer drops off”).
From Wiki:
The English translation Homer nods has become standard following Pope (1709), but is due to Dryden (1677).
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Stick it up your sleeve to pull out in the past tense should even the vigilant Rev. take his eye off the ball: Homer nodded.
Why isn’t more being of the culture issues relating to the covering up of sex pests?
It’s all about the financial coverups but when you can really add the coverup culture involving everyone it paints more a picture than just financial. Does the normal person care how the financial crime was committed? It came out of the same account isn’t “exciting” and accounting rules / regs are mind numbing.
But Grady et al hit home because people easily understand that predatory behaviour.
Finding a way to really nail the culture problem will make a big difference to getting this to hit home.
We all know Swinney is going to cave after letting this run and having an inquiry. Flynn is waiting his time to let it start to be drawn out, inquiry, then when the bodies are being buried he is the shining light to take them forward in the era.
There is no oversight of the Crown Office.
This situation shows the very real need for oversight.
They are indeed a law unto themselves.