It just takes a beat
Looks like we turned that round pretty fast, gang. Six weeks ago:
And today:
Amazing what a draft document and a KC opinion can do, eh? A casual observer might be forgiven for thinking that the SNP was absolutely cold-sweat desperate to avoid a civil case that would set a powerful precedent for a legal prosecution.
On that subject, incidentally, things are getting interesting. Alert readers will recall that last month we received this email from Police Scotland, intriguingly noting they that had “been advised” that they’d already investigated John Swinney’s admission that the SNP had stolen all the referendum-campaign fundraiser money.
One such alert reader swiftly dropped them an FOI request asking who’d advised them, and got a curious answer a couple of weeks later.
So that’s a novel use of language: “we have been advised” means “we neither sought nor received advice”. Naturally, our reader sought a little more clarity.
This morning they received this response:
So to strip it down to the basics: the curt reply last month to our question about why the original crime investigated in Operation Branchform – the SNP stealing donors’ money, not Peter Murrell stealing the money the SNP had stolen – had not been resolved or resulted in any prosecutions was complete cobblers written by someone who didn’t know what they were talking about.
That’s not OUR interpretation, that’s literally what Police Scotland have just said. When we queried that reply, we got a further response saying “Hmm, please give us a bit more time”.
That was almost a month ago now. (12 June to be precise.) And we did tell them to feel free to have a proper think before answering this time, so that’s fine.
But it’s really not a very complicated question. The “factual matrix”, to use the legal term, is undisputed.
As one of Scotland’s leading KCs agrees.
(Widely reported in today’s papers.)
The SNP’s dramatic and sudden U-turn on the question of refunds is undoubtedly the smart move. Paying back the stolen money to anyone who asks may be an effective move in shutting down a civil case (although that would depend on whether they also offered interest and compensation, as raised by Roddy Dunlop).
But it also acts as a(nother) tacit admission that a crime has been committed, because why else would you be paying people back when you’d previously said you wouldn’t because their money was being used for what they’d donated it for?
And that, readers, if you’ll forgive the mixed metaphor, bats the hot potato right back into Police Scotland and the Crown Office’s court.
If a crime on such a large scale has been committed – the exact same crime Peter Murrell just got five years and three months in prison for, over a substantially smaller sum – and nobody disputes any of the material facts of the case (which they don’t), then why did a five-year investigation decide not to prosecute anyone for it?
The police and Crown Office, having previously tried to dismissively fob us off with two sentences, and then trying to blame each other, now keep telling us to wait while they come up with a proper answer.
We’ve waited a month so far, and we’ll keep on waiting, because we’ve got nothin’ but time. But lads, when the answer arrives it really better be a good one.
If the allegations of embezzlement are true, and even if not all donors claim money back or don’t receive it on acceptable terms, a crime has still been committed.
So even if the SNP gives monies (including interest and compensation on the terms laid out in the draft document and KC opinion) back to donors will you continue to prosecute the case?
I certainly hope so!
see paragraph 25 of Dunlop’s advice.
There’s a time limit on judicial review so be careful offering them unlimited time to respond.