Judges, Juries And Horseshit
Iain Lawson’s fine blog today reveals that Nicola Sturgeon has already taken it upon herself to answer Jim Sillars’ complaint from Thursday – which was sent to Permanent Secretary Leslie Evans, not to the First Minister – about her breaking the Ministerial Code by casting doubt on the jury’s verdicts in the Alex Salmond trial.
It’s certainly an innovative approach to justice – we presume that if we were to murder someone tomorrow the police would now simply forward the allegations to us and allow us to find ourselves not guilty without any external input.
But it was the precise nature of Nicola Sturgeon’s self-acquittal that really left us with an uneasy feeling about the current state of Scotland.
Because what she said was this:
And that’s a barefaced lie, because Sillars’ complaint was about this line:
And here’s the problem: that’s exactly what it DOES mean.
Everything Alex Salmond was charged with in his trial last year was a crime. Otherwise he couldn’t have been charged with it (duh). He wasn’t charged with going down to the corner shop and buying a Twix, because that isn’t a crime. You can, by definition, only be charged in a criminal trial with things that are crimes.
And the jury’s only task in a trial is to decide whether or not the things the accused is charged with happened. Nothing else.
It’s not up to them to decide whether things that have been alleged are crimes – that’s been determined in advance by the police and the Procurator Fiscal. And it’s not up to them to issue a sentence if the accused is found guilty – that’s the judge’s job.
The jury’s ONLY responsibility is listen to the evidence presented by the prosecution and defence counsels and make up its mind whether the things that have been alleged actually took place. If they have, the accused is guilty and the judge passes sentence. If they haven’t, the accused remains innocent and free to walk out of the court and live their lives without a stain on their character.
Let’s just spell that distribution of decisions out once more for the extra-dim:
POLICE: “Is the thing that has been alleged a crime?”
PROCURATOR FISCAL: “Is there at least a chance of a conviction?”
JURY: “Did the alleged thing actually happen?”
JUDGE: “What sentence should I give the accused if convicted?
In the trial of Alex Salmond, the jury decided that the things that had been alleged DID NOT HAPPEN. While they have not – and cannot – speak of their reasoning or deliberations, we can ascertain that particular fact with 100% certainty, because they didn’t find him guilty of any of them.
If they’d been persuaded by one of Scotland’s most senior prosecutors, marshalling the evidence collected by a vast multi-million-pound police operation, that any of the events DID happen, they’d have had no choice but to return at least one guilty verdict, because that’s literally the only thing they were there to do.
But they didn’t return any guilty verdicts, ergo the things didn’t happen.
That is now, in every legal sense, a cast-iron fact. It’s been heard, judged and ruled. There was no appeal. It is the sole reality. If Nicola Sturgeon says “Hey, maybe it did happen really”, then beyond the slightest sliver of a shadow of a dispute what she is doing is questioning the verdicts of the jury.
It was not for the jury to determine whether or not any non-criminal things took place or to offer a view on what sort of a man Alex Salmond might or might not be in general. They were not asked to do so, they had no right to do so, and so they did not do so. What they collectively decided, absolutely unambiguously and definitively, was that the things Alex Salmond was accused of in court had not happened.
The First Minister is a liar, and plainly now considers herself above and beyond the law of the land. Fortunately for her, on this occasion she somehow gets to be her own jury (or to be more accurate in terms of this piece, her own police and Procurator Fiscal). Perhaps one day not too long from now she’ll face a real one.
Absolutely spot on!
Maybe NS has a brain tumour, that would explain things.
Hold up your hand if you were stiched up
link to theguardian.com
She’s gone. She’s now her own counsel.
No ‘memento mori’ in her ears.
Alex yesterday showed the world how to conduct yourself in the face of adversity. You cant keep a good man down. No matter how much forces of the state you throw at him. Leslie Evans is still losing the war.
Nice of you to provide the Sturgeonites with a wee booklet for free Stu.
The Law For Dummies.
I totally agree that legal verdicts must be respected. But by your same logic, OJ Simpson didn’t kill anyone.
“I totally agree that legal verdicts must be respected. But by your same logic, OJ Simpson didn’t kill anyone.”
So you agree that verdicts must be respected, except you don’t at all.
But that’s not even the point. If I said to you “Are you questioning the jury’s verdict in the OJ Simpson trial?”, I presume you would in fact reply “Absolutely I am, because that cunt’s guilty as fuck”. Plainly you ARE questioning it. Fine, that’s not against the law. But Sturgeon is pretending NOT to be doing that, because she’s a fucking liar.
She’s exonerating herself. No one is fit to judge her except herself. Shades of Napoleon grabbing the crown from the Pope and crowning himself emperor.
I dread another term of government, headed by Nicoliar and the wokey cokey. The majority of SNP and independence supporters, are as thick as mince. They worship Queen Nicoliar and truly believe there will be a referendum in 2021, making Scotland free by the end of the year.
Not use whether to laugh, or cry.
You must also be 100% convinced that Michael Jackson did not abuse his alleged victims. Fine. Valid viewpoint. Must be nice to have such complete faith in the legal process though.
I am not sure I agree with part of your argument regarding the remit of a jury. The argument about some of the charges was about consent rather than the actual events taking place. Its not a crime for a man and woman to get it on but if one of those parties does not give or withrdaws consent at some point during the act it maybe a crime.
A prosecution may alledge a crime and a hury may have to decide whether acts which are not in dispute were criminal acts or not.
It was addressed to the Permanent Secretary so a reply should have come from the Permanent Secretary. The need to control appears to show someone losing control of how to conduct oneself. Note the use of the word conspiracy yet again which is used mostly by those who continue to smear Alex Salmond.
“You must also be 100% convinced that Michael Jackson did not abuse his alleged victims. Fine. Valid viewpoint. Must be nice to have such complete faith in the legal process though.”
See above.
(And I have literally no idea whether he did or not, btw. I didn’t pay much attention.)
Let me spell it out again: I am NOT saying courts are infallible. Of course they’re not. I’m saying that you can’t question their verdicts and then turn around and say that you’re fucking not doing that.
This isjust wrong. We all know, for instance, that “beyond reasonable doubt” (used in criminal trials) is a much higher bar than “balance of probabilities” (used in civil cases). The decision of the jury in Salmond’s trial that he was not guilty on 13 charges and not proven on one, means that the “proof” led by the prosecution and/or the evidence led by Salmond’s legal team to rebut this, led the jury to decide that the prosecution case was not proven beyond reasonable doubt. However, that is not the same thing, as saying the behaviour complained of didnt happen – it means that the behaviour complained of did not meet the bar of it being criminal. To argue as you do that because the jury ” didn’t return any guilty verdicts, ergo the things didn’t happen” is just nonesense and way below your usual standard of forensic analysis.
It is also interesting that you assert that it wasnt for the jury “to offer a view on what sort of a man Alex Salmond might or might not be in general” – but Gordon Jackson, Salmond’s QC, did in his summing up speech – “he might have been a better man”, I think was how it was put.
When you conclude that what the jury “collectively decided, absolutely unambiguously and definitively, was that the things Alex Salmond was accused of in court had not happened” you are quite simply totally wrong. It is quite possible for behaviour to be “inappropriate” (let’s say), even “very inappropriate” without it being criminal.
This might be an inconvenient fact, but continuing with this line of argument is misleading, and even more important adds more fuel to a fire that burns to the detriment of us all who believe in independence.
To claim that miscarriages of justice never, ever happen and jurys are always 100% correct is mind-numbingly stupid.
Though perhaps not helpful or responsible, Sturgeon’s statement is logically sound.
Judging by a few of the initial comments on here, we should consider doing away with trial by jury and just go back to public denouncements in church and pressing folk to death once the congregation has decided the devil is afoot.
Criminal trial awaits, surely.
“The argument about some of the charges was about consent rather than the actual events taking place.”
No, you’re entirely wrong. It is absolutely intrinsic to the charge that consent was not given, or was withdrawn but ignored, because CONSENSUAL ACTS ARE NOT A CRIME. (Well, except in certain very limited circumstances which did not apply here.)
The charge was not “touching people”, it was expressly UNLAWFUL touching. If lawful consensual touching happened, that’s not a crime. If the jury’s finding was that touching happened but that it was consensual, then that’s a finding that the thing he was charged with (unlawful touching) didn’t happen.
Do we know for a fact ‘she’ wrote it? She has previous for passing things along to Evans.
It’s come to something that this needs to be said. We were all brought up to obey the law. Learn right from wrong. If you got in trouble not nice things would happen. As we got older we perhaps learned about what happens in a court. We also learned that in a court if you’re found guilty, more not nice things would happen. But if you tell the truth you’ll be OK, you’ll be innocent and not guilty.
At that point, you moved from Primary 7 to the big school.
Is there no recourse at all against this kind of mendacity?
‘But that doesn’t mean that the behaviour complained of didn’t happen’…..
That is finest example of narcissistic hubris from a parliamentarian that I can remember. To make it on live TV, on the BBC, was staggering.
She thinks it’s OK? Scotland needs to dump this idiot.
She’s a full on Jeremy Hunt.
This is interesting if you have two minutes spare…
link to healthline.com
When you’ve finished, ask yourself if you’re reminded of anyone.
I certainly was.
Sturgeon – and the others – can’t get their heads around the idea the people on the jury don’t see the world through woke-tinted glasses
If nothing else
Such verdicts are likely to become more commonplace when the post-election Hatecrime regime starts dragging people through the courts
“To claim that miscarriages of justice never, ever happen and jurys are always 100% correct is mind-numbingly stupid.
Though perhaps not helpful or responsible, Sturgeon’s statement is logically sound.”
I’m going to say this once more and if you fail to listen for a third time I’m going to block you.
NOBODY HAS SAID THAT JURIES ARE NEVER WRONG. I explicitly made that point in my second reply.
The thing I’ve raised an issue with is that Sturgeon is lying when she says she’s not questioning the jury’s decision, because she REALLY FUCKING OBVIOUSLY IS DOING THAT.
I hate saying this, but it needs to be said in case it comes to pass. Despite the masterful presentation, the gravitas, the cool intellect and the clear and deep knowledge and clarity of speaking the truth…it very possibly won’t matter. Alex Salmond may well be vindicated, legally and politically, but it won’t matter. Sturgeon will somehow limp along til May, and either finish her job of destroying the SNP, or turning it into a zombie party.
A couple of days ago I posted something about whether we are in a chess match or a zoo. I think we’re in a zoo.
The media, ALL the state media (for the bulk of the population who don’t venture beyond TV) are all aligned behind whatever dark and satanic deal they have made with Sturgeon, or vice versa.
It’s not deluded to say that the strange tectonic drift from constant SNP bad coverage, to either softballing or complicit silence has been notable, and, to me, alarming in it’s completeness. The many many awful fawning facebook and twitter posts and tweets whenever herself utters anything are astroturfy (and expensive) and to my eye, significantly engineered.
Before 2014 I was naive enough to believe that the left wing media would at least be fair in their coverage of the referendum issue. How very wrong I was. We saw how left and right disappear in the face of a substantive threat to the British state. That was the end of the Guardian for me.
I feel that naive again. I thought that there were enough principled and committed people to represent the desire to gain independence, and that the vehicle was the SNP. I thought that anyone who managed to become an SNP representative had that goal in mind, not some parasite shuffling towards whatever warm political body they could enter and feed on.
I thought that there were enough non internally colonised members of Scots law, politics, academia, government, industry, that would align around supporting a better future. There may be, but I can’t see them.
One of the great clarifications of this debacle, the horrible, corrupt and arrogant behaviour of the Scottish Ceau?escus, the abuse and malevolence endured by someone who should be held and lauded as one of Scotland’s greatest politicians, is this; we’re not special, we are as fecked up as any other country. If we are going to get independence, we are going to have to take it, or make it.
Nice of her to ‘double-down’. Instead of trying to slither off the hook by claiming her words were ‘possibly badly put’ or even ‘were misconstrued’ she decides to jump straight in, with both feet, reinforcing her culpability. Methinks she is really starting to unravel.
Excuse my extreme simplicity but why is it even normal, seemingly in this special legal area, to use woolly terms like “complainants” and “behaviour complained of” instead of “alleged victims” and “alleged crimes”? Am I still thinking in shillings and tuppence while the world has moved onto a new currency? Or are these just some kind of weird weasel words intended to blur the distinction between guilt and innocence.
I seriously worry for that woman’s mental health. She is delusional
Re Adam, when one reads law, one is taught the presumption of the accused is innocent until proven guilty. That presumption stands until the person is convicted by the jury/judge. In that sense OJ was, is and will innocent unless and until decided otherwise in court. You have to have complete faith in the system. If the system is imperfect, then fix it. You on the underhand are undermining it. Very Trump-ian if I might further add.
Outcome-based people always trust their own instincts above everything else, regardless of the truth. Process-based people trust the process, be it legal, procedural or whatever. This clash of identities within western civilization can be boiled down to this division.
…will be^ innocent
The First Minister’s Lessons in Legal Logic 101:
Nicola – “There’s no evidence of a conspiracy therefore there was no conspiracy.”
Also Nicola – “There’s no evidence he did it, therefore he still did it.”
Sorry, I missed your second reply as I was writing mine. My point, which you still don’t seem to understand is that Sturgeon’s comment is factually sound. You said “And here’s the problem: that’s exactly what it DOES mean” but nobody other than Salmond and his accusers know what actually happened. So if you accept that miscarriages of justice are possible then you accept that Sturgeon’s statement is true. As I say, it might not be a responsible thing for her to say but the logic you set out in this article is partly flawed.
Her arrogance is off the scale. Still trying to bluff her way through. Well it’s about to get called. Wonder if blinky will give it all away.
Nicola Murrell is being propped up by the Globalists, Devi Sridhar for example. Clinton foundation.
That Queen Elizabeth. She’s been a terrible influence.
She has form with trying to pervert Justice, remember this link to dailyrecord.co.uk
Yeah so prosecution say there was no consent and defence says there was consent and it wasn’t a crime. But the events are not in doubt. Perhaps Nicola is not arguing that a crime was committed but that inappropriate acts were committed by Alec Salmond (trying to have sex in Bute House with a member of staff). Crime or not it can be argued that that event is a “stain on his character”.
@Alasdiar Galloway
Are we to assume that you are a perfect man, that there has never in your life been an occasion when you could have been a better man?
There are times when I could have been a better woman, I’m sure, but thank god (or whoever) no group of liars ever had me charged with criminal acts that could have sent me to jail for a very long time, for not always behaving perfectly.
The jury of mostly women, in front of a female judge, found Alex Salmond not guilty. Had his accusers felt that was wrong, they could have appealed. They didn’t.
Please come down from your high horse and have some sympathy for a man who has been put through immeasurable pain, yet still managed to conduct himself yesterday in a way that I doubt any ‘better man’ could have.
@Karen: I doubt NS has a brain tumor. Her actions suggest a recent lobotomy.
Someone suggested that NS as a brain tumour. How about being menopausal, that can do strange things to people
Could a jealous husband who had been forever overshadowed by the boss of his wife, take an opportunity to undermine the boss?
Could a jealous man be easily manipulated?
Could a woman in a high-powered job, be unaware her husband was doing things behind her back?
Could a woman who was usually very organised be involved in a cluster-shambles?
My recollection is that woman H, who claimed attempted rape, wasn’t even in the building at the time of the alleged assault.
That’s correct, isn’t it?
Mac Maghnais says:
27 February, 2021 at 2:31 pm
Its not a crime for a man and woman to get it on but if one of those parties does not give or withrdaws consent at some point during the act it maybe a crime.
Ruby replies
I had to give your comment a lot of thought.
Getting it on is not a crime
Rape is a crime.
Jury decide if crime happened not if rape is a crime.
OJ Simpson didn’t kill anyone. Even if he did. That’s how it works once the trial is over and you have been found not guilty. Only new evidence can change that.
Liars have a tell.
Sturgeons tell is “uncontrollable blinking”
Boris Johnson’s tell is “his mouth forms a smirk”.
Bye bye Adam.
“So if you accept that miscarriages of justice are possible then you accept that Sturgeon’s statement is true. As I say, it might not be a responsible thing for her to say but the logic you set out in this article is partly flawed.”
For fuck’s sake.
STATEMENTS BY NICOLA STURGEON I AM NOT ARGUING WITH:
“Maybe the things did happen and the jury were wrong”
I think that’s bollocks but it’s a thing she’s legally allowed to say.
STATEMENTS BY NICOLA STURGEON I AM ARGUING WITH:
“I am not questioning the jury’s verdict”
Yes you fucking are you lying cunt.
I gave you a chance, you were too dumb to read. Banned.
Dorothy Devine says:
27 February, 2021 at 3:00 pm
Bye bye Adam.
———————
Or whoever he really is.
Adam’s on a blocking.
I reckon the trolls are posted right beside laptops – orders from their masters – and making sure they’re among the first ten comments. Sticking out like sore Sturgeons.
Some excellent points well made again Stu. What yesterday’s marathon session surely illustrated above all else is the loss of one of the independence movement’s best assets is debilitating but must be addressed. Alex presented his case with integrity and aplomb. Hopefully he will soon be back making arguments for an independence referendum without Westminster permission or veto with similar integrity and aplomb. Here is my interpretation of the evidence session yesterday and the extraordinary events involving Alex Salmond over the last three years. I have already attracted opprobrium from some quarters for referencing this website. Those who refuse to open their eyes are the blindest of all link to sptnkne.ws
D’ahh! No sooner said than banned!
Adam’s off!
‘She’s gone. She’s now her own counsel.’
She has no choice. They won’t be answering the phone at the Faculty of Advocates.
Alex Salmond told the committee yesterday that if they wanted copies of evidence that he has and the inquiry doesn’t, then all they have to do is contact his solicitors over the weekend.
He said his solicitors will provide them with very important information relevant to the hearing.
I was wondering if they have contacted Salmond solicitors or not?
Anyone any information regarding this?
I think this is of extreme importance and yet no one is really talking about it.
@Mac Maghnais @ 2.53pm
In criminal cases it is up to the prosecution to prove their case against the defendant. The defence do not have to prove anything.
There has to be corroborating evidence from more than one source to the event for it to be given any weight at Court by a jury during their deliberations
“When you conclude that what the jury “collectively decided, absolutely unambiguously and definitively, was that the things Alex Salmond was accused of in court had not happened” you are quite simply totally wrong. It is quite possible for behaviour to be “inappropriate” (let’s say), even “very inappropriate” without it being criminal.”
Yes, that is possible. But it’s absolutely none of the jury’s business. The jury’s business is to decide whether or not CRIMINAL things happened. They decided that they did not.
Has everyone had a fucking lobotomy today, or are you all just trying to piss me off for laughs?
Adam, which bit of the denial in NS’s statement that she has not challenged the verdict when she clearly has in her earlier statement is causing problems?
A blind man on a galloping horse can see this is clearly the case.
@Adam,
Sturgeon is in a different position to most. She is the FM and her parliament creates and upholds the law.
When she sends out signals that the law is somehow unsatisfactory or unacceptable then we are in a bad place.
The law cannot bend to suit anybody and everhbody. We have the jury system to decide on the balance of available evidence.b That decision must be accepted. What if we told the jury.nope to go out and decide again and come back with the right verdict.
The onus is on the Crown to provide proof that is convincing enough. It is not on the defendant. This case was less than convincing.
Some ridiculous accusations and those that were severely serious found not to have occurred at all.
The FM must accept this without reservation otherwise her oath to uphold the rule of law is also empty
“It was also entirely wrong of you to suggest that I was casting doubt on the outcome of the criminal trial.” You can’t doubt what you don’t accept! There is no doubt about it, she is clearly refusing to accept the verdict.
“It is the sole reality.” That is unquestionably true Stuart, but we know the difficulty Nicola Sturgeon has with reality. She lives in a fantasy world.
“The First Minister is a liar, and plainly now considers herself above and beyond the law of the land.” This is undoubtedly true also, but she has always considered herself above the law, it is just that things are getting out of hand now. She has ridden roughshod over all the checks and balances that should be in place to prevent such a deranged and deluded individual wielding power in the first place.
The argument about some of the charges was about consent rather than the actual events taking place.
I’m not sure that’s true in this case. It may be true in a rape case, but no rape was ever alleged. One attempted rape was, and the defence on that one was very strong and that came back not guilty.
With the other charges, they were mostly “sexual assault”, and that was what was on the front page of all the papers. However most of them were weak, eg hair pinging, touching a knee while the woman’s husband was there, a hand on the back while his wife was there etc. So the question then surely is not so much “Did it happen?” but “Did it constitute sexual assault”. So it would be perfectly reasonable to deduce that “No, regardless whether you believe it happened or not, it wasn’t sexual assault, hence the accused is not guilty of the charge laid.”
Yes, you could argue “The hair pinging did happen; that woman didn’t lie about it” (which is probably true and there were some events he admitted to in the case). But if the only charge sheet the public has ever seen is “sexual assault”, it’s disingenuous and utterly wrong to suggest he is actually guilty and “the behaviour complained of did happen” because the behaviour complained of was sexual assault. Had he gone to prison that’s what it would have been for, and you don’t prosecute someone and put them through court unless you think there is a good chance of a guilty verdict, hence prison for “sexual assault” was very much a possible outcome.
If some people wish to lower the barrier for criminal sexual assault to “touching anyone without their express permission every single time”, they should look at legislating for that. Personally, I miss hugs and arms around my shoulder and wouldn’t like to live in that world.
“Adam says:
27 February, 2021 at 2:48 pm
Sorry,
…
So if you accept that miscarriages of justice are possible then you accept that Sturgeon’s statement is true.”
Do you know what a miscarriage of justice is?
I’ll spell it out for you because you are clearly thick as pigshit:
“A miscarriage of justice, also known as a failure of justice, occurs when a person is convicted and punished for a crime that they did not commit.”
Alex Salmond’s innocence was upheld by a jury trial with a majority female jury in the High Court on 13 SEPERATE CHARGES, therefore no miscarriage of justice happened to Alex Salmond at his criminal trial.
I’m going to pre-empt you here and answer your retort to the above: “…the complainers had a miscarriage of justice..”
The complainers were not on trial, so they cannot have suffered a miscarraige of justice, it’s that simple.
If that doesn’t smack you that a persons innocence was upheld 13 seperate times in the highest criminal court in Scotland then you are beyond help.
“As I say, it might not be a responsible thing for her to say but the logic you set out in this article is partly flawed.”
Nicola Sturgeon stated that even though the highest criminal court in the land along with the jury upheld his innocence THIRTEEN SEPERATE TIMES, that he still did the things which the High Court upheld is innocence on.
She implied that the majority female jury at the high court and the sitting judge got it completely fucking wrong 13 seperate times.
No minister, and especially not a First Minister should be bringing into disrepute the judicial system nor the validity of jury trials, simple because she’s made her fucking mind up and thats it, the final ruling is whatever shite comes out of her mouth.
Get a grip.
Nicola Sturgeon you are an arsehole and a total disgrace.
For goodness’ sake- Rev Stu is correct as any first year law student can appreciate
If the Indictment (Or charge sheet or whatever its called up there) does not disclose a criminal offence then it is defective and would be struck down. That hardly ever happens (oh hang on isnt that exactly what happened in one of the Rangers FC lash-ups recently?)
The Judge tells the Jury what the law is. The jury decide the facts. Ergo they decided the facts were not made out and thus the defendant was not guilty
Any departure from this is a dangerous precedent especially I would suggest at such a high level of office
There is a positive campaign of “Alex did it really” posting going on. Amazing it has extended to Wings.
Alex admitted to ONE incident of inappropriate behaviour. ONE. In 30 years. Which was entirely consensual.
All the other allegations the defence was they DID not happen, or were not in any sense sexual (putting his arm round the shoulder of someone who was crying being one example, giving someone a push to get a move on as they were blocking the stair was another).
There was NO sexual behaviour charged to which Alex admitted except the one incident.
“So the question then surely is not so much “Did it happen?” but “Did it constitute sexual assault”.”
No it isn’t. In nearly all of the charges his defence was expressly that they didn’t happen at all. There were only a couple where he admitted SOMETHING happened but that it wasn’t anything either non-consensual or illegal.
For pity sake, if you don’t think 2 years of effort by a team of 22 police officers
trying to produce something on Alex Salmond dismal failure before a Judge and Jury
isn’t a sign of innocence they you can open every cell door in the country.
Nicola casting doubt on this declaration has just lost any credibility I had for her.
She wants to look at the lump on the other side of her bed for criminal activity.
At a very high cost that man has done nothing for the SNP or Independence.
Who the hell he thought he was trying to put pressure on the police I’ll never know.
Both must go and take others of that ilk with them.
Police have a duty to establish if a crime has been committed, conduct full enquiry, trace sufficient evidence to identify the person/s responsible, if possible.
The PF – duty – has a crime been committed, is there sufficiency of evidence to prove beyond all reasonable doubt that accused committed it, is it in the public interests to prosecute.
Jury: was it a crime? did accused do it, have the Prosecution provided enough evidence to establish that ‘beyond all reasonable doubt.’ If any one of those legs is missing they have a duty to aquit.
The responsibility to prove beyond all reasonable doubt – rests with the prosecution – not the accused.
A consensual act between adults is exactly that – and not a crime. The essence of the crime is in the overcoming of the other persons will. If there is not enough evidence to prove beyond all reasonable doubt the ‘against their will’ part – then one cannot establish that it was a crime, ergo, it didn’t happen in a way that could be described as criminal.
The fact, that for the most serious criminal allegations, multiple witnesses and documents established that the female complainer – wasn’t there – puts it beyond the pale in establishing – it didn’t happen.
One awful thought about NS’s appearance next week – will she have parliamentary privillage? A license to slander AS at every turn?
You can’t reason with insane people. She is obviously mad and drunk on power.
When you get to the other shore you can burn the boat that got you there.
Buddha is mind, mind is Buddha,
Mind and Buddha are basically illusions.
If you know there is no Buddha and no mind,
this is at least the real Buddha of true suchness.
@Craig Murray – There was a healine in The Spectator earlier: ‘Sturgeon responds to claims of an establishment stitch-up, with another establishment stitch-up.’
Thankfully though, she doesn’t seem to have the Crown Office on her side any longer (or does she); just the wee hairy-marys on Twitter.
Rev you will be glad you’re off twitter or your swearometer would be off the scale.
It’s a shitshow out there.
The Sturgenistas, the press with an agenda, the hard of thinking and the bots.
I despair at how dense people are.
This is the same reason Labour controlled Scotland for so long
Of course this could be Nicola laying a defence of Murell for the future.
Dear Adam the office junior in a solicitors’ office has more legal knowledge than you …. that is all
Don’t Ban Me! I am not a troller or a yoon either! It took me a while to compose my message which I started when there were only 14 comments to this thread.
Hello Stu
I can understand why you have said what you did, but I have to agree with Adam at 2.26 on this one. The jury’s job is not to decide whether the alleged thing actually happened.
We have in Scotland what is called an Adersarial criminal system whereas in France, for example they have an Inquisitorial criminal system.
In the French system, the job of the court is to work out insofar as they can what happened.
In the Scottish system the job of the jury is to decide whether the prosecution has proved the case beyond reasonable doubt.
Although I do not fly a flag either for RCS or for NS, it is therefore perfectly possible according to our criminal justice system for an accused person to have committed a crime but because of the failure to discharge the burden of proof, to walk free.
In the case of Alex Salmond, I am personally firmly of the view that he is innocent of the charges, but I do have to accept that a strict interpretation of the Law for ANY criminal trial is that just because an Accused was found Not Guilty does not mean that he was innocent.
As I said at 7.10 pm in the Post entitled The Fall of Saigon:-
“Here we have Scotland’s current FM saying that the Alphabetties have been “accused…of being liars…”
This is quite breathtaking. For a member of the public to have such a view is, to some extent, understandable, but for the so-called Leader not only to have that view but to state it publically is appalling. It demonstrates the respect which she has for our Judiciary.”
She has gone too far. The finding of Not Guilty has a corollary namely that it has not been proved beyond reasonable doubt that the Alphabetties were truthful. It certainly does not mean that they have been accused of being liars. Naturally there is specific evidence which can be led in certain specific cases which can be referred to, to demonstrate that, for example, a complainer (“victim/survivor”) is a liar but a verdict of Not Guilty does not of itself speak to any evidence, merely that the case was NOT PROVED BEYOND REASONABLE DOUBT.
I agree that NS is unfit to be FM and ought to resign for the good of the country. She has allowed the SNP to be ruined as a party of Government and has turned it into a party for a minority with overtones (not undertones) of Stalinism.
I also agree that she is questioning the jury’s decision.
“just because an Accused was found Not Guilty does not mean that he was innocent.”
Yes it does. Everyone is innocent until proven guilty. If you’re not proven guilty, you don’t BECOME innocent, you REMAIN innocent, and have never been anything BUT innocent.
I don’t know the origin of this quote, but it was a response to “With all due respect…”, to which the response was:
“Don’t ever use that phrase on me. It always precedes an insult.”
In nearly all of the charges his defence was expressly that they didn’t happen at all.
Agreed. For a lot of them there were absolutely no witnesses to say they happened and several saying they didn’t. So that must be true for at least some of them.
Would it be possible legally to write an article clearly setting out all the allegations with the defence case and witnesses summed up for each? I still think most people have no idea what they actually were and what the defence was. I’ve read some of the blogging around the case at the time and am still not wholly sure myself. But most people have literally no idea. Brought together in one neat article might help show just how weak the case really was.
Hey, lets look on the bright side, Iain Lawson suggests that Alex is returning in some way…fun times ahead and maybe even Independence before I am deid!
I have problems with the fact that most of the charges brought against Alex Salmond are crimes!
Being that ‘The Reverend Mother’ believes they are not criminal then perhaps to avoid any further misunderstanding she needs to make a precise list of what is and isn’t acceptable behaviour.
I say so what if the behaviour happened?
I believe Nicola Sturgeon has some very serious psychological problems.
@ Mac Maghnais says:
27 February, 2021 at 2:53 pm
Yeah so prosecution say there was no consent and defence says there was consent and it wasn’t a crime. But the events are not in doubt. Perhaps Nicola is not arguing that a crime was committed but that inappropriate acts were committed by Alec Salmond (trying to have sex in Bute House with a member of staff). Crime or not it can be argued that that event is a “stain on his character”.
Actually Mac – your wrong. You don’t get taken to the highest criminal court in the land charged with a ‘stain on your character’. And if you bother to look into it, on multiple, multiple charges, not only was there no corroboration that the events alleged to have taken place in very busy public places, took place, but the defence produced witnesses there, at the time, who stated, ‘that never happened’.
This includes for the most serious charge, when the complainer, was not signed into Bute House on either night she made allegations for – that cannot happen – for security reasons – with a First Minsister. The kitchen rota was checked to see if the complainer was one of the guest that night – no she wasn’t, the actor abroad, failed to describe her properly – she had a stookie on her arm for goodness sake, oh, and a good friend who knows her well, was there that night and states that the complainer was definitely Not There.
It is not a case of ‘he said/she said, no one really knows’. Its very much a case of ‘this stuff never happened’. THE EVENTS WERE PROVEN BY THE DEFENCE – NOT TO HAVE HAPPENED.
What worries me most about Sturgeon’s ridiculous statement about the verdict is this:
Nicola Sturgeon holds a degree of LLB from Glasgow University – with Honours, and has a diploma entitling her to practice Law.
She in fact practiced Law prior to entering Politics. Now, if someone with that legal training and hands-on experience can get it so wrong – what does that say about the level of training at her old university and within the legal profession in Scotland?
It is not reassuring to learn that someone who spent four years acquiring a degree in law, then spent five years qualifying as a solicitor and working in general legal practice can have such total disregard for the principles of her calling.
By her behaviour with regard to Alex Salmond, she has shown herself unfit for the office she holds.
Nicola Sturgeon will not resign – she should be sacked. Are there enough people within the SNP to demand this?
I’m sick of these lowlife bloodsucking bastards bringing us all down to their tabloid sewer levels. Yesterday for the first time in about 3 years I felt like I could breathe.
There’s a distinct pattern to SNP politics today;
1) act like cunts
2) get caught and deny it by lying
3) hide the lies with more lies
4) drag us into the gutter of you either believe us or you don’t.
Everybody sees through it. The SNP is a toxic brand, irretrievably corrupt, and we need to destroy it to move on.
They want a war? Vietnam? How about some Rambo?
“I’ll give you a war you won’t believe!”
The First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is way out of her depth on almost everything, but remains afloat on a raft of arrogance.
This needed to be said, because Sturgeon and Swinney have been trying to muddy the waters of late, suggesting that a person can somehow be guilty and condemned in some vague and unspecified way, even after having been acquitted by a jury. If that’s not undermining the justiciary then I don’t know what is. Miscarriages of justice do of course happen, but they are not alleging any. They are just flinging insinuations around hoping that the gutter press will do the rest. I’m still an SNP supporter, not because of the leadership but in spite of it
AS was considerate towards NS yesterday during the committee hearing and stated that it does not follow that she has to resign,
However NS is defeating herself by openly showing hostilities towards AS, by indicating that the jury and court decision is not correct in its entirety.
It seems to every man and his dog that AS is correct in saying there was malicious behaviour towards him from certain SNPs. The withholding of his evidence by the advocate, seems to bring much joy to those that did conspire against him.
From that point of view everything that AS has said is becoming more and more obviously true.
There is now no back door out for her as she shows more and more vindictives and bias behaviour proving AS correct in malicious behaviour from herself and the Scottish goverment,
Alex Salmond is indeed on a higher level intellectually, politically and in humanity.
“There has to be corroborating evidence from more than one source to the event for it to be given any weight at Court by a jury during their deliberations.”
This goes to the heart of this and lot of other issues, some of them related.
It’s obvious that across large parts of society that the basic tenets of the scientific method, objective and substantiating evidence based inquiry, due process etc have been rejected in favour of creating your own subjective reality.
In individuals this is bad enough. However, it is becoming increasingly problematic for the effective functioning of society and social discourse when institutions and organisations are also operating on the basis of rejecting any notion of objective reality.
Relying instead on the reactionary and regressive approach of “this is so because I say it is so, therefore it must by definition be so because I’ve said it and my subjective opinion and feelings are sacrosanct and everybody else has to accept this or be punished.”
It’s why the Permanent Secretary offered no argument or substantiating evidence when responding to the legal advice of AS’s legal Counsel re. the JR other then ” We think the process was legal.”
It’s why self styled legends in their own bedrooms Twitter ‘warriors’ – too many of them in elected and other positions of influence, authority and power, way beyond their level of actual maturity – spend all their time collectively spitting the dummy out in heir own purity spiral, virtue signalling echo chamber, when anyone ventures a spoken word which contradicts the made up ersatz reality residing in their heads.
The present divide is not so much political, more that between what seems to be a rapidly heading towards extinction reality based community and an exponentially growing mass incapable of the maturity required to cope with objective reality.
Nothing extraordinary about the FM’s behaviour, she and her court have power and the intention is to keep hold of it.
“It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.”
Aung San Suu Kyi, (and she should know)
May I digress slightly from Sturgeon-bashing (although that is a mighty fine pastime) to just say to Rev, what a fantastic album that Weather Prophets one is!!
THE EVENTS WERE PROVEN BY THE DEFENCE – NOT TO HAVE HAPPENED.
This is what is missing from the narrative, as – to the best of my knowledge – the defence has never been reported beyond a few blogs who were reporting under severe restrictions. It needs to be more widely out there, both what the allegations really were and the defence and witnesses which persuaded the jury.
Hey, lets look on the bright side, Iain Lawson suggests that Alex is returning in some way…fun times ahead and maybe even Independence before I am deid!
Hi Dixon
I made a comment re this on the previous thread at 1.05. I think the committee have a major challenge re this, particularly the role of Mr. Salmond’s QC’s. I agree it is a serious moment.
Prior to trial an accused is considered innocent.. The Crown must prove guilt.
During the trial the accused is considered innocent till the Crown proves guilt.
After the trial guilt is established or not.
The accused resumes their status as before or during trial
If guilty they go to jail.if receive suitable punishment.
That’s spot on Mr Wings. Can we please see the back of her soon because she is ruining my days. And goodness only knows how Mr Salmond has maintained his honour and strength of purpose and character when faced with this woman’s treachery.
I’m not religious but Sturgeon is truly ‘evil’ and I take ‘evil’ to be ‘live’ backwards. She has upended morality through SNP and her dominance of Scottish government.
Alex Salmond was arrested and tried under the following charges:
1. Indecent assault of a woman on various occasions in June and July 2008 in Glasgow by kissing her on the mouth and touching her buttocks and breast with his hands over her clothing.
2. Sexual assault of the same woman on an occasion in December 2010 at Ego, a nightclub in Edinburgh, by touching her arms, breasts and hips with his hands over her clothing.
3. Indecent assault of a woman on an occasion between October and November 2010 at Bute House in Edinburgh by repeatedly seizing her by her wrists and repeatedly pulling her towards him and attempting to kiss her.
4. Sexual assault of a woman in a car travelling between Holyrood Road and Waverley Station in Edinburgh on an occasion in February 2011 by touching her leg with his hand over her clothing.
5. Sexual assault of a woman on various occasions between May 2011 and June 2013 at Bute House, at the Scottish Parliament and elsewhere by touching her buttocks with his hands over her clothing, and touching and stroking her hair.
6. Sexual assault of a woman on an occasion between November and December 2013 at Bute House by kissing her on the mouth.
7. Intent to rape of the same woman on an occasion in December 2013 at Bute House by causing her to sit on a bed, lie on top of her, make sexual remarks to her, touch her buttocks, thighs and breasts over her clothing with his hands, repeatedly kiss her face, struggle with her and pull up her dress.
8. Sexual assault of a woman on an occasion in March 2012 at Ubiquitous Chip, a restaurant in Ashton Lane, Glasgow, by touching her buttocks with his hand over her clothing.
9. Sexual assault of the same woman on an occasion in April 2014 at Bute House by placing his arm around her, making sexual remarks to her and attempting to kiss her.
10. Sexual assault of a woman on an occasion in May 2014 at Bute House by placing his arm around her body, placing his hand under her clothing and underwear and touching her breast, repeatedly kissing her on the face and neck and stroking her leg with his hand.
11. Attempted rape of the same woman on an occasion in June 2014 at Bute House by lifting her legs and placing them over his legs, repeatedly kissing her on the face and neck, placing his hand inside her upper clothing and touching her breast over her underwear, repeatedly blocking her path, pinning her against a wall, removing his clothing and underwear, pushing her on to a bed, kneeling over her, pinning her to the bed by her shoulder, lying naked on top of her and then trying to rape her.
12. Sexual assault of a woman on an occasion in September 2014 at Bute House by seizing her by her shoulders, repeatedly kissing her on the face, attempting to kiss her on the lips, and touching her leg and face with his hand.
13. Sexual assault of a woman on an occasion in November 2014 at Stirling Castle by touching her buttock with his hand over her clothing.
You will see that Alex Salmond was not tried for “inappropriate behaviour in public office,” and he would not have been jailed for “inappropriate behaviour in public office.” The crimes of which he was accused were far more serious, ranging from assault to attempted rape. The jury don’t get to decide whether the things listed above were crimes or not, because it is self-evident that they are crimes. If any of the above charges were to be proven correct, then they cannot result in a Not Guilty/Not Proven verdict, because they are crimes. Therefore, either they did happen, and an error of impunity (i.e. a guilty man walks free, the opposite of a miscarriage of justice) has occurred, or they did not happen, and were therefore not crimes.
Those who think that a great injustice has occurred in this trial can only base it on those crimes, nothing else. This being the case, if you truly support survivors, then you must believe them when they say they were sexually/indecently assaulted and/or the victim of attempted rape – not that Salmond behaved inappropriately, but criminally. And if you believe them, then you must believe that a monstrous error of impunity has taken place. You must believe that Mr Salmond was guilty of the crimes of which he was charged, otherwise, you do not believe the women at all.
And if you believe the women, then you do not believe the jury. If you do not believe the jury, then at least have the courage of your convictions to advocate an appeal to undo this horrific injustice. Note that in doing so, you are also calling into question the defense, the judge, and the process itself – and if you believe yourself to be correct, that should not deter you from seeking out the truth. It is, in fact, your moral imperative to do so – otherwise, you are intimating that justice has failed these women, and that there is nothing that can be done about it, which is neither true or remotely the message anyone wants to send vulnerable victims of heinous crimes.
There has been no appeal against the jury’s decision.
Apart from the arrogance of the reply, is it not rather a bad look for Evans to have passed Jim Sillars’ letter (addressed to her, Evans) straight to the FM?
Is that not the type of sharing of documents and information that we are supposed to believe absolutely never happens inappropriately within SG High Command? The kind of behaviour they have so vehemently denied in relation to their attempts to Get Salmond?
Or did NS read the letter on Iain Lawson’s blog? Surely not. Isn’t that every bit as much proscribed samizdat as Wings?
Sometimes people think their just too smart , just too fkn clever I will sort this upstart out myself no need to go through the little niceties Campbell and that fkr Sillars are getting it just watch this , twang thud
That’s the sound of a trap springing shut and you sweetie just walked in and all of your own free will .
Princess Nicola and the other shit throwers are well and truly up to their necks in something they will regret pushing their mouths and egos have drawn them into something they now can’t wriggle out of can’t control , use proxies to hide behind by saying , hinting ” aye he’s guilty ” it just wasn’t proven , these people just can’t go around in public and saying the stuff your little witches coven discus on a daily or even hourly basis ,
The First Minister of Scotland has just been branded a liar in a online forum it’s there for all to see its not hidden it’s freely available to all to verify .
What are you going to do about it Nicola Sturgeon First Minister ? Your Character and Trustworthiness have just been drawn into question , what do you say in reply ? .
We are waiting ! .
Aye and Frank isn’t at the fkn door dear, hopefully it’s the friendly local constabulary, yer nicked
Alex Salmond says he’s no saint!
That is 100% OK with me. Most people I know aren’t saints.
I don’t get along with the ‘holier than thou’ saintly types.
Saint Nicola would be better placed in a nunnery.
“Get thee to a nunnery!”
Is her wiggle room here that the ‘behaviour complained of’ in her mind relates to alleged events that at one time might have stayed part of an HR process? The problem being terminological confusion between a complainer in an HR process and in a criminal trial.
The problem for NS is that she chose not to intervene in an HR process after having indicated she might do so, which meant responsibility was handed to Leslie Evans who then referred the matter against the complainers’ wishes to the police (is that right?). Why did she give an assurance of intervention to Alex Salmond’s face and then relay her change of mind by a WhatsApp message? That kind of change of behaviour often signifies a guilty conscience…
I agree it’s repugnant for Sturgeon to exonerate herself, but it is equally repugnant for Leslie Evans, who is up to her neck in this, to be left in charge of determining which evidence the Committee is entitled to see and what is redacted.
Farcical and disgusting.
I agree that the FMs statement challenges the verdict AND her letter claims she did not. An obvious lie.
However looking at her general attitude to the verdicts. One example- The FMs logic appears to be that even though a jury believed the witnesses that one accuser was not at a dinner that night AND was not signed into the Bute House official register…it still happened.
This is not He said, She said. It is a false claim.
If I was found not guilty of such a charge because I had proved I was 400 miles away at a conference with twenty witnesses I would not expect anyone to suggest that I may still have done it.
The Jury didn’t flip a coin to decide. The listened to the evidence CASE by CASE.
First there was self-service.
Now Sturgeon has invented self-Sheriff.
What will the Law Society of Scotland do or say on Nicola Sturgeon’s repeated rubbish of a Court and a Jury. She was a lawyer if she is still licensed surely they would censure her. If she’s not they could still a statement condemning her actions which amount to making a laughing stock of the Justice system.
How did Scotland ever get into such a state where even if you are charged with multiple counts of pish and you are aquitted by a jury of (normal) people, the persons who not only accused the aquitted of such spurious charges are not only permitted to further attempt to retry,defame and destroy the aquitted through anonymity but they are supported and allied by another reckless mendacious incompetent who has supposedly studied and qualified in law , perhaps it was the kez dugdale school of Law where they don’t know the meaning of words
PLEASE the estimable judiciary and law faculty get this stupidity and egregious misuse of the law sorted or you and we will become an even bigger laughing stock
My god, she is such a weasel. Interesting, isn’t it, that this is exactly the same tactic that Boris Johnson uses, part of the Trump repertoire. That is to pay lip service to the constitution and public institutions, while making asides and thinly disguised dog whistles to that part of the public and media which you know will lap it up.
As the Rev says, the jury found him not guilty, several of the ‘incidents’ were shown to have been impossible to have happened. Therefore he is innocent. Whatever you think, based on scurrilous allegations and hearsay, is merely your opinion, and as such, in any public forum responsible people who represent legal and political institutions have an obligation to accept that. There is no get-out clause where you can say you accept the jury’s verdict but then claim that he is still guilty of unspecified offences at which you, and everybody else, were not present. Your opinion as a public servant is irrelevant – that is the first rule of public service, because your office is more important than you, and your responsibilities are to uphold the law and to speak on established facts, and not give currency to rumour and opinion. This is basic stuff.
And Alex was absolutely correct to repeat it twice yesterday, emphasising that it was the First Minister, the person above all who should act with respect for the law, with dignity and circumspection, moreover at a public health briefing where she has vowed not to speak politically, who broke the rule of ministerial conduct. To pretend that she was not denying the jury while blithely telling us the incidents still happened is an abuse of her power and position and is factually wrong, because she was not present at any such incident and therefore has no knowledge of any untoward behaviour. It is a disgrace, and she should be sued for slander, except Alex is too dignified for that. But she knew exactly what she was doing, feeding the public and press with false allegations, timed deliberately just ahead of his appearance at the inquiry. Every time she is threatened, stories mysteriously appear smearing Alex and leaking about the supposed complainants’ suffering, also evidence of which we have none.
The manipulation might be expected of a PR hack, a think tank or a SPAD, but coming from the leader of the nation brings her and her office into disrepute. That she is supported in her Machiavellian tactics by the main stream press and her army of acolytes just makes it worse. Alex Salmon is entitled to be very aggrieved, given everything he has been through, the contemptuous slimeball tactics aimed at him are beyond the pale, and should bar people like her from public office. And why is she protecting Evans? I think you can work it out.
Think the Sturgeonite trolls are toying with Stu, just to disrupt the site traffic and comments.
Keep up the good work Rev.
Don’t let the bastards grind you down.
Solution is simple. Stop talking and act. The independence movement should detach from the snp and a new psrty should be formed from the sensible snp politicians.
I don`t know how many of you have mentioned it, but it seems to have gone largely below the radar.
Alex Salmond made the pint, several times yesterday that after the Police investigation started the civil servants investigating him on these false charges, were still contacting the complainants, despite the fact that what they were doing was breaking the law.
Surely, this has to be investigated by the Police and indeed and internal civil service inquiry has to take place to see if they did indeed break the law by conducting these actions.
I notice from some of the previous posts above references to Michael Jackson and OJ Simpson, very strange! which i may add have absolutely nothing to do with A. Salmond V. N. Sturgeon.
The burden here is the fact that when the lord advocate was handed the case to take to court he is supposed to weigh up the pros and cons and decide as to whether there was enough CORROBORATED EVIDENCE TO WIN THE CASE. There was none, zero, sweet fuck all!
So it should never have gone to court in the first place! therefore the lord advocate should in all essence RESIGN!
Hopefully in the near future Alex can sue: Evans, Sturgeon, Murrel, McKinnon for defamation of character. As for lord advocate he acted in a malicious manner along side the conspirators to destroy Alex Salmond’s reputation regardless of evidence which he was aware of and had advised Sturgeon not to go ahead but for some strange reason he still carried out the prosecution knowing he would lose. Why didn’t he just say NO! ???
The lawyers also said NO but for some strange reason continued the case. I assume they were served an ultimatum from her royal highness McSturgeon. These people in question are despicable and are not fit to run an orgy in a brothel let alone a country of 5.5m people. In my humble opinion they should all be removed and banned from ever participating in politics.
as for OJ.S, AND M J. NO COMPARISON! TRY JULIAN ASSANGE! after all he was stitched just like the Rangers FC.
and from what I have read, BUTTERSTONE SCHOOL was also a stitch up involving JOHN SWINNEY and McSturgeon and numerous others.
CAN YOU SEE A PATTERN HERE NOW PEOPLES?
There are a multitude of points like this brought up yesterday which should be addressed as soon as possible. Either Mr Salmond is providing a lot of false evidence under oath, or the civil service (among others) have broken the law. This *should* be very easy to prove either way.
It is very strange logic to assume after someone was acquitted on all charges that somehow they were doing things that just fell short of being criminal.
Why not simply assume the events never happened at all. Which is what I think was the case for most of them.
The events that did happen were things that were twisted into being sexual or indecent assaults when they were nothing of the kind. The jury rejected them the same as the events that were ficticous.
The only two things that Salmond did was admit to the consensual cuddle with Woman F (and I believe Salmond’s account of that 100% at this point) and interestingly Salmond admitted to having another fully clothed amorous encounter with Woman H but that this was well before the dates her false rape and assault accusations were meant to have happened.
There is zero evidence, absolutely none, that Salmond was a sex pest to anyone.
hat it looks like to me is certain ambitious women thinking they were owed something and feeling scorned. These are the Spite Girls.
As Salmond said he is no angel. But who is.
I could not give a fuck about any of this trivial crap and it really is trivial. OooooOOOOoooo a fully clothed cuddle. Twice. What a beast eh.
FFS just how up tight and prudish are people in Scotland. Pinch faced Presbyterian pish.
Mon the Salmond.
I’m just struggling at the moment to deal with how angry I am with Sturgeon and her new brand of SNP. For what she’s put Alex and his family through – and is still, continually putting him through. But also for where Scotland could and would have been now had this not happened and instead Alex had come back to work with the independence movement and potentially with The Scotsman as well. Four years of utter hell could have been, and should have been, the four years we were winning independence as Brexit happened. I honestly can’t bring myself to watch her next week. My laptop wouldn’t survive it.
Back in the 60s, as a young reporter, I covered a rather tatty murder trial in the High Court in Glasgow. The accused man got off…but later that night he confessed to me that he had actually killed his wife.
I was excited at my “scoop” and disappointed when the office lawyer spiked it. I learned that once a trial has concluded you are not allowed to question the jury`s verdict or what is termed “murmur” a presiding judge.
I wonder what the current legal establishment make of the current FM`s words? Or has the law changed?
And speaking of grinding, word from the staff at the Caird Hall mass vaccination center (NOT) there is a developing shortage of vaccine supplies and the program is grinding to a halt.
Think there was about 1/10th desks manned out of “lots”
So I guess I was lucky just to be be called forwards for mine…
What the First Minister and others appear to be suggesting is that it is possible (or likely) that the jury might have thought that Alex Salmond committed the acts specified, but did not think those acts amounted to crimes or reached the standard of criminality. That is not a legally permissible interpretation of what happened. That these charges were on the indictment that went to the jury means that they were crimes, otherwise their presence on it would have been challenged before the trial started. It is no part of a jury’s function to decide whether the acts libelled are crimes. The jury’s only function is to decide whether these crimes have been proved beyond reasonable doubt or not. By their verdict the jury in this case decided that those crimes were not proved. It is not a legally permissible interpretation to suggest that the jury found (or might have found) the acts to be proved but did not consider those acts to be criminal.
@Adam,
There is good evidence that the complainers in the Michael Jackson trial wre in for the money. That doesn’t mean he was entirely innocent but it does mean the case was not made beyond reasonable doubt. If the defence can prove the unreliability, untruthfulness, incompetence or obvious bias of the complainers then the case will usually fall.
In the OJ Simpson trial the killer was that the gloves didn’t fit. Was that police incompetence or what? I didn’t get into that much but that was the killer fact. The prosecution alleged the killer wore those gloves to kill the victims. Maybe Simpson deliberately wore too small gloves? I don’t know but the case hinged on that.
Surely the complaint by Jim Sillars if valid should be dealt with by the legal procedure the government has for this type of complaint.
If that says Nicola can answer it then she is OK . If not then that letter is not worth the time she has spent and Evans (or the person delegated to) has to deal with it.
But the handling of this is a complete and utter mess and anyone with any value for their integrity would have run away from being involved.
I’ve not had time to read through all the comments yet so forgive me if someone has already said this.
I believe Nickolier flaming drawers is preparing to retry Alex Salmond when she appears at the enquiry and to effectively deny the verdict. The bigger the lie the more chance she has of getting away with it, and she has a lot to loose.
The enquiry was on the whole careful not to allow a retrial when Alex appeared, I sincerely hope they continue. If not then they should face the charge of being complicit.
So we are to believe she keeps the Perm Sec at arms length and has no awareness of her actions while at the same time answering the Perm Sec’s emails?
I’m horrified she said that, live on tv too and in a COVID briefing.
The leader of our country and a qualified lawyer said those things happened. A jury said they didn’t. She is smearing trial by jury. It’s the sort of crap a trump-like leader would come out with. Brazen, stupid and deeply disturbing.
She should have resigned over that alone. She has called into question one of our pillars of justice which she is entrusted to safeguard. Horrific.
The OJ Simpson and M Jackson comparisons are utterly irrelevant, unless you had the US president or senior politicians claiming that they were guilty and they respect the jury’s verdict. Which I don’t remember happening.
Oh and if you believe they were guilty, that is merely your opinion and not an established fact.
Is the fact that the letter was sent to the Permanent Secretary and the First Minister’s response to it, evidence that the FM is in part responsible for the actions that have come from that department?
Just imagine: with May, Brexit and Johnson where Scotland would be under Alex Salmond. It is even possible that we would never had Johnson and May would have lost her snap election. The SNP under Sturgeon lost crucial seats which would have denied May continuing, and of course last year the SNP colluded with the appalling Jo Swinson to call and election which put the odious liar in charge with huge majority. Well done, Nicola.
Mac says:
27 February, 2021 at 4:18 pm
It is very strange logic to assume after someone was acquitted on all charges that somehow they were doing things that just fell short of being criminal.
I have a suspicion that all this started as threats to Mr Salmond and they always knew that they were on dodgy ground but had hoped that at some point Mr Salmond would back down. When that didn’t happen and they realised that they’d made a mess of the ‘Harassment’policy and knew they were in trouble, they pushed the women to take Mr Salmond to court and hoped to get the Judicial Inquiry sisted. I think that those pressurising some of the ladies (one in particular I believe) thought they were bound to get one guilty verdict out of so many accusations and had really underestimated the capacity of the ‘ordinary person’ to suss out when people were telling porkies.
Can you get carry-outs from that Chinese restaurant which does that deep fried seaweed you used to order on Fridays? I have a yen for Chinese the night.
You used to post pictures of the toasted seaweed or something, on twitter, along with beers on sunhot pub tables, cat-guests and Bath bear-hunts. I miss all that. And remember that weird Sunday the village was invaded by the Wehrmacht?
While we’re all here, can I just congratulate Anas Sarwar for becoming the first person in the UK from an ethnic minority to elected leader of an accounting unit.
Words have no meaning in the world of the ‘woke’.
Can’t believe there are people on this thread that see her comments as logical.
Expect a shit load more of this when she gives testimony.
How many times is she going to perjure herself i wonder.
We have a delinquent government, a delinquent civil-service and a delinquent legal profession.
It’s what you call a perfect ‘Doom-Loop’.
Taranaich: it is not the job of the jury to decide whether someone lied or not. Their sole responsibility is to decide whether the evidence was of a sufficiency and strength to overcome the very high hurdle (quite rightly so when a person’s liberty is at stake) of ‘beyond reasonable doubt’. That may mean that someone lied or it may not. It does not mean that one or more of the witnesses had an ulterior motive, but it doesn’t rule it out either.
At the end of the day, Mr Salmond was found not guilty/not proven by a jury of his peers. The prosecution used the Moorov Doctrine to back up the two more serious allegations and charges, but, ironically, the lesser alleged incidents merely brought doubt on the more serious ones. I believe that at least one, or more, of the women did not wish to appear as witnesses but were persuaded to do so, and that does show the weakness of the prosecution case. Having to subpoena a hostile witness is never a good look.
The procedure was flawed and illegal, they lost the Judicial Review and they lost the criminal case. It is not for any member of the public to throw doubt on the outcomes. If the women are still not satisfied, they would have to bring a private civil prosecution against Mr Salmond. I hope they will listen to advice on that and eschew any such action because they will surely lose again.
Sniping from behind the shield of anonymity is also not advised because it was never intended for that purpose, and all it does is inflame public opinion against them and invites identification, helping no one. It is to be hoped that both sides have learned valuable lessons, and, more to the point, that security and records of coming and goings at Bute House are considerably strengthened.
The court cases are over, but that does not mean that the SNPG’s conduct in this whole saga was driven by probity and clarity. Far from it, it would appear. That is what is important now, so that it cannot happen again. No one is above the law, but neither should anyone be below it.
Its the creeping anglicisation of everything that might lead a person to believe a jury verdict means a person is guilty or innocent. I have thought for a very long time that the auld Scots proven or not proven were in fact much more accurate verdicts. All a jury can determine is whether the prosecution put up a good enough case to satisfy them that the accused had done the crime. It does not mean a guilty man did not do it, and equally a guilty man did do it. It merely means that the prosecution did a good enough job at making the jurors think that the accused on balance of probabilities did do or not do it. Now in this case we are reasonably happy that AS did not do it. And the jury got it right even if they were wrong. It does appear that the most serious allegation could not possibly have happened, and we wonder why the accuser is not being investigated for perjury. As to the other trivial charges, we are told a Moorov conviction was being saught. However it would seem very odd that with as we are told, over 400 lines of inquiry pursued, all of those who made it to court were linked as much by their association with a faction in government as they were with the accusation, that indeed perhaps a Moorov connection was noticed by the jury. A pattern of behaviour among the complainers rather than the accused.
I am surprised at the number of seemingly intelligent people who are still fooled by the COPFS/Police Scotland packing the charge sheet with fluffed up rubbish.
The reason they conjured up all these non events out of nothing was precisely for the purpose of making people think “there has to be something to it with this number of charges”.
This is essentially the Moorov doctrine logic. But it only applies to real crimes not puffed up non-events which is what they did to Salmond.
The meat of the charges against Salmod was only two charges, the intent to rape and attempted rape charges from Woman H and F. These charges were very weak and they knew it. Unprovable accusations, one persons word against the others.
So they deliberately went on an insane fishing expedition and still they could find nothing.
So they just elevated nothing incidents into sexual and indecent assaults anyway.
And still to this day people who should know better trot this pish out like it is prima facie evidence that Salmond must have been doing something.
If you think that you are a mug, they mugged you off. That is what they set out to achieve by packing the charge list. When you look at them one by one they disintegrate.
The whole thing was garbage, a complete stitch-up.
I am also having trouble with the second part of this quote.
What has respecting the jury got to do with protecting the prosecution service? Which i am sure she has by the way!
‘It is also entirely wrong of you to suggest that I was casting doubt on the outcome of the criminal trial. I have never, and would never, call into question the Jury‘s findings, which I
fully respect In fact, I have spent the last few days protecting the independence of the prosecution service from some really rather disgraceful, politically motivated attacks that do a disservice to all of us who care about these matters.’
Ruby says:27 February, 2021 at 3:58 pm
“Saint Nicola would be better placed in a nunnery.”
Or get a job as a cleaner at Holyrood.
Cleaners, bin men and bar staff see all. If we want to recruit discreet staff for the Scottish Secret Service, start with these folks
Most of the charges were pretty weak on their own and wouldn’t have made it to court. Moorov was the aim, as they tried to present a pattern of behaviour. That may well have worked if the eejits hadn’t set up a “support group” from the complainers. As soon as it was shown that they were talking to each other, they were always open to a charge of colluding thus destroying Moorov. It’s hard to be believe that we are currently governed by a lawyer FM who doesn’t seem to get that and continues to smear Alex.
Kind of O/T
The performance that Alex Salmond gave yesterday at the inquiry is the kind of statemanship which has been severely lacking at Holyrood since.. well basically since he left.
Nobody within the current Scottish Parliament nor Government are capable of fending off UK Ministers of the Crown, not through rigorous debate, certainly not through the legistlature and none of them are capable of standing up the scrutiny that he has had to endure for over 3 years.
Those elected representatives in ministerial roles in Scotland are only capable of the type of debate you witness in county council chambers, where if they get censured for their actions then they might get a month off work, have to forfeit some pay from what is their second job, that is about all that happens to community councillors who recieve complaints about their actions – a minor hit to the salary of their second job, some time off and afterwards you continue in your elected role generally without consequence.
This now appears to be the adopted attitude of the Scottish Governments ministers, ministers who think that defying Parliamentary votes is no worse an offence than a community councillor who goes against the will of the council.
This is the kind of adopted attitude by government ministers towards their elected roles which must be suffocated out of existence for any sort of resonable debate as well as the upholding of the founding principles of our Scottish Parliament.
Now you might well ask just what has Holyrood done in the time since Alec left politics, you can pretty much count on both hands all of the policies and legislation that the SNP Scottish Government have enacted in that time.
The glaring caveat to the enacted policies above are when you consider that the Scottish Government is made up of Scottish National Party representatives, people who are elected on (now multiple) mandates to achieve Scottish independence from the United Kingdom.
What policies or legislative actions have they taken towards Scottish independence since Alec left politics? When he left, he left the SNP with a rising number of the electorate changing their view from being pro-union to pro-Scotland, indeed through his leadership and the hard work of the party membership out canvassing the electorate he gifted the SNP a majority of MP’s to Westminster, and a pro-independence pro-Scotland majority coalition in the Scottish Parliament.
All of that was off the back of the successful 2014 independence campaign – successful because it awoke so many in Scotland to the possibility of a different future, a better future, a future built for Scotland by the soveriegn Scottish people, a right which has been denied to us for some 314 years.
The only positive, pro-indy policies which the SNP Scottish Government have enacted since 2014, are bills to speed any referendum through the Scottish Parliament whenever they decide to beat their heads off the brick walls of Downing Street trying to obtain another Section 30 order.
That is not progress, that is stalling, seven years of stalling, three more years and it will be a decade with zero progress on the future of Scotland.
It is stalling because I now firmly believe that the current SNP Scottish Government are not only unwilling, but are incapable of standing up to the rigorous debate and the rigorous scrutiny that would be required not only of themselves but of any proposed Scottish constitution and future policies (A white paper) which would form a central part of having a plebicide election return to being front and center of the SNP’s manifesto.
Some people will argue that there are still good people within the SNP, I am pretty sure there are, but the rot set in at the head of the SNP and to alleviate that rot you need to decapitate it.
I as a member of the SNP am now firmly of the belief that nothing will change the direction the SNP are heading while the current leadership are still in position, they didn’t settle up, they settled in.
‘Get thee to a nunnery” yeh inside a prison.
@Rose Ford – no you should not assume that at all. I have my flaws (ask my wife!) as well as Alex Salmond. Not being perfect is not a criminal offence though, is it?
I am fed up to my back teeth of people coming out with this nonsense regarding the verdicts. Please get it through your thick skulls that the jury had the choice of three verdicts, guilty (beyond reasonable doubt), not proven (if they are unsure) and not guilty(if they are sure beyond reasonable doubt). As they delivered not guilty in all but one charge they must have been sure they did not happen ie they were lies.
In answer to the question of what would happen if a complaint / allegation was made against the First Minister, AS stated it was passed to the Deputy First Minister.
Assuming that is still the case, why on earth is the FM dealing with a complaint which relates specifically to her.
And so the FM continues to kick bishop Brennan up the arse.
“Captain Yossarian says:
27 February, 2021 at 2:58 pm
My recollection is that woman H, who claimed attempted rape, wasn’t even in the building at the time of the alleged assault.
That’s correct, isn’t it?”
Yes, and the author of the ‘i have a plan’
link to craigmurray.org.uk
link to craigmurray.org.uk
Narcissistic personality disorder
Two visually upsetting things that I have witnessed over the past few days are:-
1/
Nicola Sturgeon turning her Covid briefing into a platform to rip Alex Salmond to shreds.
And
2/
Maureen Watt.
There is a teensy get out there though.
If “the behavior claimed of” and the charges brought were different things.
That of course is a new can of worms which can’t be unraveled. (yet?) We know what the charges were but we don’t actually know for sure what the original claims were.
So she could be 100% right in stating the behavior complained of happened, BUT… that would mean the the charges brought were made up or at least exagerted.
There are various attempts going on here and in Sturgeon’s loyalist party to declare that Salmond wasn’t really found to be innocent of the charges by a jury of his peers. However once we go down that road, everyone can be decided to be technically guilty of everything anyone else can bring against them – appear in court for slander, and if there is no proof you slandered the person, you walk. Except perhaps someone else (by the loyalists’ way of thinking) gets to say of them “ah, it just wasn’t proven well enough, that’s all; he really did slander them I’m sure of it”. Can you ever prove your innocence therefore? No of course not. Not even by that way of thinking if a jury says you’re innocent. Our sole defence as ordinary people is a jury of our peers. Not a judge’s decision; not the media deciding for us; not you deciding the charges simply didn’t quite make the bar of being convincing enough for you. This means – either you accept that a jury’s decision is accurate, until such time as further evidence disproving that is forthcoming (eg Birmingham 6, in which case you go about getting that further evidence) or you decide someone’s guilty because, well, they just are, so there. Sturgeon clearly follows the latter idea, and so it seems do the Sturgeon loyalists.
Prasad says:
Yes, and the author of the ‘i have a plan’
Which she sent to Woman J BEFORE either of them came forward as accusers.
This farce will continue because the unionist media in Scotland along with stv,bbc, sky, channel 4 etc, will continue to shield sturgeon up until about a week or so before the may election, then put the boot in to destroy the Snp. Job done, independence off the table for god knows how long.
The whole thing was garbage, a complete stitch-up.
I would dearly love to see Nicola Sturgeon’s behaviour put under a similar level of scrutiny by the Police.
RevSTU, I have read your comments above, and you must have the patience of a saint, explaining over and over again what you ACTUALLY wrote and NOT what dimwits IMAGINE you have written.
It seems some folk posting on here are wholly incapable of rational logical thought progression.
Nicola Sturgeon, in that response, shows she is unfit for office. Either she is brazenly lying, or she is Having some kind of breakdown. She is a trained lawyer, so her English language comprehension skills should mean she wouldn’t misunderstand the complaint. Either way something needs done.
Folk are remarking at how coherent and fluent Alex Salmond was in his testimony yesterday, but that is relatively easy if you are telling the truth. It would be hard to talk well for six hours, if you were covering things up. It is interesting therefore, to note the stumbles, misunderstandings, revisions and corrections in the evidence given by others (Murrell, Lord Advocate, Leslie Evans) to the committee.
Does anybody know, has the committee actually bothered to take up Alex’s offer, of documents from his solicitors??
Am I right in thinking that the code of conduct which applies to current members of the Scottish cabinet differs from that which applies to former members in that the latter allows for historic complaints while the former does not?
In other words that the complaints system was designed to attack AS?
Apologies if I have misunderstood!
Willie Hogg at 503pm,
Agree, but further, you are innocent until proven guilty in court. Alex Salmond was therefore found innocent of all charges. ALL charges.
Cenchos @5:04
“And so the FM continues to kick bishop Brennan up the arse.”
Murrell likely came up with the plan:
Nicola, why don’t you outrageously lie and obfuscate and then just carry on as if nothing has happened. The Scottish people would never believe you’d do such a thing. They’d just think they imagined it or something.
(Chuckles) That might work. That might just work Peter. As god is my witness I will kick the Scottish people up the arse!
If Alex Salmond was actually guilty of something then ask yourself why did they have to rig the investigations into him at every single stage.
If Salmond was actually guilty why not just have an honest, transparent investigation and convict him.
Why did they have to cheat the system and create such a ridiculously unfair, biased and rigged process.
The answer is obvious isn’t it. Because Salmond was guilty of nothing.
You create a bent process to wrongly convict someone, to stitch someone up.
They could not rely on Fairness At Work because it was fair!
They needed ‘Unfairness at Work – The Salmond Plan’.
And that is exactly what they did.
At every stage they behaviour was appalling, it still is.
They would not have had to do any of these appalling things if Salmond had been genuinely guilty of anything.
Obvious trolling aside, some excellent comments btl on this thread. As Socrates says, it’s embarrassing for a qualified lawyer like the FM to come away with such manifestly twisted tosh but it seems to match her increasingly delusional and vindictive personality.
@David Hansell 3.38:”The present divide is not so much political, more that between what seems to be a rapidly heading towards extinction reality based community and an exponentially growing mass incapable of the maturity required to cope with objective reality.”
Just so, and it of course is at the bottom of the woke delusion: just make up whatever you want and believe that your feelings are the most important thing. Then scream at and censor anyone whom you don’t agree with.
And just wait until Yousaf’s little box of Hate Crime (lovely Orwellian language, innit?) tricks is enacted: cheerio pesky Ever-Vile Campbell!
@Taranaich 3.56: a most useful summary for Newbies/Curious but Confused and great to see you commenting here again.
The fact that Sturgeon had the brass neck to reply to Sillars surely proves her disregard for due process and her conviction that she, like a true demagogue, is the law itself. She has no right to take the complaint and refuse the permanent secretary the right to reply as a government official who respects the law and the parameters of what public servants can say in public. It is up to her to either reply, or pass it on to an independent adjudicator, but it is a matter of record that due process must be followed if you want to claim that your administration adheres to transparency and accountability. The clear implication is that this government, and its head in particular, believe that they are above the law and not answerable to normal process and regulation. Expect to see that in spades on Wednesday as she ignores the actual questions and gets on her soapbox with her prepared answers to questions nobody asked and are irrelevant to the actual inquiry. It would take a tough committee to face her down and attempt to get some straight answers to serious allegations, and nothing they have done so far would lead you to believe that they are. Obfuscation will be the game, with copious amounts of smearing of Alex. And lots of the already practised line of ‘there is no evidence’. The biggest lie of all.
My God! She must have shares in Brasso.
Philip Sim did a daily podcast from AS trial which is a fair record of the case and also includes some useful input from a BBC lawyer. It takes a while to get through but it’s worth it?
link to bbc.co.uk
I wonder if Sturgeon IS so confident because she has full protection from Westminster and the Tory press AND the BBC.
Has she been compromised?
The reason that Nicola and people like Adam are able to make these claims, is that not only are the names of the complainers (correctly) being withheld but the whole trial and incidents surrounding it (the Craig Murray affair for instance) is clouded in secrecy.
Since Alex Salmond is being constantly re-tried by the media, aided and abetted by the women who made complaints, along with organizations such as Rape Crisis Scotland, and now the First Minister and many, many of her ‘people’ why not release details of the trial with the complainers’ names redacted, so that everyone can make their own minds up about what did and didn’t happen.
One thing for sure, the information that has been withheld will certainly be damaging to the complainers because if it was damaging to AS it would have been leaked to the Daily Record months ago!
So we can see by the behaviour of the ‘Crown’ that there wasn’t a shred of evidence against Alex, and the evidence that was presented was found to be dishonest.
Nicola in her desperation to undermine Alex will have been privy to the evidence provided by the prosecution and the evidence that showed it was tainted.
So, we can say for certain that Nicola Sturgeon is a liar.
A lot of the speculation and obfuscation bandied about by those unable to accept the verdicts would have been avoided, had we had anything approaching an honest mass media in this country. Many of the allegations were denied by third party witnesses, several of whom detest Alex Salmond. It is possible for people to continue this innuendo and whispering campaign largely because there is general ignorance of how comprehensive the destruction of the prosecution actually was.
Hi all, I can’t find the video where Sturgeon said this on Thursday. Tried BBC iplayer but can’t see anything. I have some video of Sturgeon using up time challenging Salmond but the specific footage that Jim Sillers is referring to I can’t find. If anyone has a link please let me know as it would be really helpful.
We could save a lot of money if we simply dispense with lawyers, advocates, judges, juries etc. etc. and leave it up to Nicola Sturgeon to decide who’s guilty and who’s not, who should go to jail and who shouldn’t. Perhaps Rev Stu could publish a montage of all the good people she’s already thrown under a bus since assuming absolute power?
Can the Jury not take legal action against Sturgeon for her statements on TV????
Sturgeon and he cabal are a disgrace to Scotland. Hell mend the SNP if they don’t remove them. The rot and corruption runs deep if they don’t.
Taranaich says:
Very interesting details of the charges.
Can I just add that there were actually 14 charges brought to court. You have missed out Charge 6 – ‘Removing a woman’s shoe and attempting to kiss her foot’ – which was dropped during the trial, so that the enumeration of the charges on your list should run from 7-14 rather than 6-13 to correspond to the indictment.
If the SNP get a majority in May, what are the chances that they will very soon move to undermine or even completely overturn the ‘trial by jury’ system? Very high, I would imagine. In fact, there must be a very high probability that they will seek to undermine or overturn anything – or indeed anyone – whom they perceive to have been an obstacle in getting their own way.
We are on the verge of Scotland becoming a totalitarian autocracy. NS is a ‘legal positivist’ in the sense that she thinks law can change anything and everything, and even overturn natural reality. In fact, she thinks it can reinvent reality – in her own image moreover – rather than being required to respect. That means there is no such thing as ‘natural justice’ any more. It also means that nature and reality – even physical reality – is determined by law, not defended and upheld by it.
What is right or true, honest or just is what I – the Scottish Government, the First Minister, Me and My Minion in the SNP – say is right or true, honest or just. And if you oppose us, you are clearly wrong and false, dishonest and unjust – and you will be tried, found guilty and punished accordingly.
Welcome to the Brave New Scotland of – let’s say, to make it only 40 years late – 2024. Though in fact, if we don’t stop them in May, it will already be upon us by the end of 2021.
People who can do what they did to AS, and who – not being stopped – find that they can get away with it, will do it to anyone and everyone. They will trample on people at will, and drag Scotland down into the dirty mire. We have been clearly warned – it is up to all of us to do everything we can to make sure that this nightmare does NOT happen.
We have to STOP them. Not just on the second vote, but also on the first.
Wow that’s a mighty powerful point from Sillars, you enter very dangerous ground when you begin to question a jury’s verdicts, its even more preposterous when you then claim to be defending the integrity of the Crown office.
Of course other folk, and RCS, in the political public eye that we know have also dropped innuendos, as to the jury’s verdict, without so much as a warning from Police Scotland.
This type of nasty insinuation type comment whether it be from the Sturgeon or Leslie Evans or anyone or any spokesperson for a public or private body must be called out.
@Karen says:27 February, 2021 at 2:18 pm
“Maybe NS has a brain tumour, that would explain things.”
Maybe like Margeret Ferrier she has Covid or even Mad Cow Disease
link to thenational.scot
I think Jim Sillars was being clever in sending his letter to Leslie Evans – well, not sneakily particularly clever, just that I didn’t realise why he’d send the complaint to her, and also Leslie Evans and Nicola Sturgeon appear to be incredibly dim, so he didn’t have to try too hard.
NS’s reply shows that neither she, nor Leslie Evans, followed proper procedure. What was the procedure? Not very sure, but under the ministerial code, she should have reported herself to the Deputy First Minister probably, and the Permanent Secretary should have advised her to do so. Then it should have gone to the Propriety & Ethics Team in the Cabinet probably, or maybe even referred to James Hamilton QC. There seem to be a lot of choices for the FM to report possible breaches by herself of the ministerial code. So she could have got John Swinney on to it, got him to whip up a wee report saying ‘nah, NS is the bees knees and done nothing wrong whatsoever’, and fired that off to Jim.
Instead, we have Nicola Sturgeon herself writing out her standard set of lies – and the new one of her claiming she didn’t question the jury verdict! – hah yes, her own judge and jury, flatly denying everything without consultation – directly in a letter. No advice by the Permanent Secretary of what was ‘the right thing to do’, not even lip service to proper procedure or protocol. They’ve both just proved, once again, that neither should be in office!
It is possible for people to continue this innuendo and whispering campaign largely because there is general ignorance of how comprehensive the destruction of the prosecution actually was.
In this respect, the UK national media is actually better than the Scottish. Note how Sarah Smith is being pulled up today by people in England for her lies in a way that wouldn’t happen in Scotland where it’s just accepted the media lie endlessly about pro independence people. The problem is that the English media generally don’t care about Scotland and take their opinions from Scottish journalists and politicians, so they end up being driven by the Scottish media.
Is there any chance getting it out there via the English media would lead to a much more ‘Holy crap!’ reaction from them and more coverage of what actually happened? Because in Scotland all we’ve ever had is lurid headlines and coverage with zero coverage at all of the defence or why the jury found as they did. Plus re-trails like that appalling Kirsty Work documentary where the media find him guilty. That will be all anyone in England really knows if what’s been spoon fed to them by the Scottish media. Yet the real story is much more interesting and is a huge story. You’d think one of the bigger UK papers would want to break it?
For anyone wishing to re-visit the AS trial it’s also useful to know that the Complainants were anonymised alphabetically corresponding to the order of the charges:
A — charge 1&2
B — charge 3
C — charge 4
D — charge 5
E — charge 6 (withdrawn)
F — charge 7&8
G — charge 9&10
H — charge 11&12
J — charge 13
K — charge 14
In terms of the ongoing proceedings of the Parliamentary Committee it’s important to bear in mind that the two original Complainers there designated A & B are NOT the same women described as A & B in the trial.
It’s time we had another Party for Scotland. The Unionists must be leaping with joy, but the SNP really need some opposition, some folks who will talk for the real Scotland. People of insight like Salmond & Sillars, but who will present a clearer case for Scottish Independence without the EU nonsense dominating. Scotland, as with any small Nation can stand and survive on its own terms in the World, but to do so takes actual Independence, not another set of shackles.
“He wasn’t charged with going down to the corner shop and buying a Twix, because that isn’t a crime. You can, by definition, only be charged in a criminal trial with things that are crimes.”
On a lighter note.
I bought three Mars bars today when I went for petrol at my local Tescopoly pump. Thats me fecked. The quine behind the plexi glass is a mate of my niece. I am supposed to be on a diet for health reasons. Writing out or phoning my claims of innocence didn’t wash I am afraid.
As my niece and sister pointed out – I don’t get to be my own judge and jury. I had to hand over the Mars bars to my grand niece and grand nephews.
I like to think Scotland is too small a country to get away with anything long term and Sturgeon and her corrupt cabal will get their just deserts…
I am always a bit wary of people who only present the charges. Bit like only presenting the prosecution.
Here is what Salmond said at the trial via Grousebeater. I dare say Craig Murray could add a lot of detail if allowed.
A.
“On to Woman A. Alex Salmond says claims he kissed and touched her are “a fabrication from start to finish”; they were out in public at the centre of attention, it “would be insane to be doing anything like that”. He says the claim he sexually assaulted Woman A is “not just a fabrication, it’s ludicrous”. He accuses Ms A of recruiting and encouraging five of the other accusers also to make fabrications against him. He describes Ms A as extremely close to Nicola Sturgeon. He says it “accusations make no sense whatsoever” and says Woman A has encouraged some of the other complainers to “exaggerate or make claims against me. Some are exaggerations that are taken out of proportion and I think that the impact of some of the publicity of the last 18 months might have led some people quite innocently to revise their opinions and say ‘oh well something happened to me’ and it gets presented in a totally different way. And [then] people get in a sausage machine and can’t get out of it, even if they want to.”
B.
On to the specific charges – Gordon Jackson, his QC, asks about the allegation by woman B about the Christmas card. Alex Salmond says she has “mis-remembered” – he says he took her hands and suggested they reenact the card as “a piece of fun” and “high jinks”. Story has “developed” over time. Asked if he now wonders if he went too far, Alex Salmond says “from where I’m standing now, yes…I rather I hadn’t told that joke or had that idea of fun. But at the time it wasn’t regarded as its being presented now”.
C.
On to Woman C – Jackson asks if Alex Salmond “disputes” the claim he touched her leg in the car. “Yes,” he says. He says back seat armrest couldn’t go back because it had a phone fitted in it; you couldn’t have your hand on someone’s knee without those in the front seeing.
D.
On to Woman D – Alex Salmond says he had no sexual contact with her but would occasionally “tug her hair” in an “affectionate gesture”, as it was so curly it would spring back immediately. He says he believes others did this too and that she never seemed offended or upset. He says they had attended the Ryder Cup for meetings as Scotland was hosting the next one at Gleneagles. He acknowledged further that Woman D had shown him a bikini shot of her holiday in Jamaica. He agrees that he told her she looked like Ursula Andress in ‘Dr No’. Alex Salmond says from where he stands now he wishes he’d been “more careful with people’s personal space”, but “I’m of the opinion that events are being reinterpreted and exaggerated out of any possible proportion”.
F.
On to Woman F, the charge of sexual assault with intent to rape. Alex Salmond says the two had a “sleepy cuddle” on his bed after drinking Chinese liquor. He says “it shouldn’t have happened”, but says it was a cuddle and there was “no struggle whatsoever”. Jackson notes this is a charge of sexual assault with intent to rape. “It’s not true” says Alex Salmond. “Not in the slightest. I’ve never attempted to have non-consensual sexual relations with anyone in my entire life.”
G.
On Woman G’s claim Alex Salmond touched her bottom after a dinner, Alex Salmond says any touching was on the stairs on the way in, when he gave her a “gentle shove to chivvy her up the stairs”, touching her lower back. He says it was “totally and utterly harmless”. On the other charge involving Woman G, of sexual assault at Bute House, Alex Salmond says he put his arm around her to “comfort” her but says he didn’t try to kiss her and says there was nothing sexual about it whatsoever. Adds, his wife Moira had been between Alex Salmond and Ms G when he reached up to give the shove.
H.
“Court back in open session. Jackson asks Alex Salmond about Woman H; he denies there was sexual contact on either of the occasions listed in the charges, but says there was a “consensual sexual encounter” on another occasion. Alex Salmond says there was a “consensual sexual liaison [with woman H] in the bedroom which did not involve full undress of either of us”, and says “we parted good friends with no damage done”. He says this was on a date prior to those in the two charges which he denies happened.
l. Back in session. Gordon Jackson is taking court through Alex Salmond’s diary and calendar for the month of one of the charges involving Woman H – defence has lodged a special defence of alibi on this charge. After running through a series of dates, Jackson says from the diary and calendar, is there any time that month that Woman H could have been at Bute House with Alex Salmond? “No there’s not”, he says. On to the attempted rape charge; Alex Salmond says he was “never” involved in anything like this with Woman H. He says he remembers the dinner with a celebrity she says she was at and says it’s “not possible” Woman H was there. He says he remembers the dinner and “she wasn’t there”.
m. Jackson says Alex Salmond’s position couldn’t be simpler – the allegation is “just a lie”. “Yes, that’s correct,” he says. He says Woman F was annoyed that he hadn’t backed her in a personal political project. Defence concludes questioning of Alex Salmond.”
J.
On to Woman J – the “zombie impression” claim – Alex Salmond says this didn’t happen; he says the only physical contact he had with Woman J was to tap her on the nose before he went off to bed, leaving her working on his computer. He says “nothing improper” happened.
K.
On to Woman K, who says Alex Salmond touched her bottom as they had their photo taken – he says “it didn’t happen, I didn’t grab her bottom.”
And of course the most important list – the jury’s verdicts.
Charge 1 indecent assault Woman A – NG
Charge 2 sexual assault Woman A – NG
Charge 3 indecent assault Woman B – NG
Charge 4 sexual assault Woman C – NG
Charge 5 sexual assault Woman D – NG
Charge 6 – PREVIOUSLY DROPPED
Charge 7 sexual assault Woman F- NG
Charge 8 sexual assault with intent to rape Woman F – Not proven
Charge 9 sexual assault Woman G – NG
Charge 10 sexually assault Woman G – NG
Charge 11 sexual assault Woman H – NG
Charge 12 attempted rape Woman H – NG
Charge 13 Sexual assault Woman J – NG
Charge 14 sexual assault Woman K – NG
Cheers Mac, that’s useful. Would also be good to know how many witnesses both the defence and prosecution put up to say they either witnessed the event or didn’t witness it. I have a feeling the prosecution were very short on any witnesses who actually saw the events in question, while the defence had many who – given the high profile of the trial, very bravely – stood up and said they didn’t. Many of them were in very public places where there were a lot of people about.
Dixon inform says:
27 February, 2021 at 3:05 pm
Alex Salmond told the committee yesterday that if they wanted copies of evidence that he has and the inquiry doesn’t, then all they have to do is contact his solicitors over the weekend.
He said his solicitors will provide them with very important information relevant to the hearing.
I was wondering if they have contacted Salmond solicitors or not?
Anyone any information regarding this?
I think this is of extreme importance and yet no one is really talking about it.
Spot on. The Ctte have asked the CO again for these docs; deadline midday Tuesday. I predict, at midday Tuesday, the CO will again refuse; too late to do anything else.
This faux request is a deliberate ruse to give the appearance of action while protecting theFM.
If they were serious, they would also request from Salmond solicitor in parallel.
I have not read the Hate Crime Bill, but I suspect that underneath it there is something like this: if I feel threatened by someone, then that person has threatened me. And I suspect that eventually – if not with this proposed Hate Crime Bill, then with the next one, because these things have momentum, and that momentum grows and grows – eventually, this will lead to what I would call a ‘full subjectivisation’ of ‘reality’. As in Alice in Wonderland, ‘reality is what I say it is’.
So, if I say ‘I feel threatened by you, then you threatened me’; and if I say ‘I feel abused by you – then you definitely abused me.’ You will be tried and condemned on the grounds of what other people ‘feel’ about you, and not because of anything you actually did.
I think this was already at play in what happened to AS. And it is still in play in the continuing slanderous campaign against him in the media, and within much of the SNP. Once again, if they get away with it, this total reversal of reality will simply grow and grow.
At first, even putting it kindly, it might look like a ‘Charter for the Paranoid’. In which case some might support it with the old saying to the effect that ‘Just because I am paranoid does not mean that you (or others) are not persecuting me.’ But from there, it very quickly moves much further down the line, and becomes ‘The Autocrat’s Charter’ justifying and sustaining the Totalitarian State. It provides a sure basis for those in power condemning or jailing or even killing just anyone at all whom they wish to condemn, jail or kill.
Unless we stop it now, we are on the slippery slope … Not towards independence. But towards infamy.
What happened to AS is paradigmatic for all of us, and what is at stake now is not just independence – very dear to my heart as independence is and always has been – but something even more fundamental, and deeper.
NS has made her choice. What matters, as top priority, is not independence as such, but creating the kind of Scotland she wants. For her independence is only a means towards that. She has what for her is a utopian ideal she wants to achieve for society, and GRA and the Hate Crime Bill are only the beginning. It is a whole idealistic construct present in her mind which she wishes to impose on all of us, and on the whole of reality.
She is an ideologist, with an ideology, to which all right-minded people must subscribe. If it is OK with her it ought to be – and will be – OK with everyone. She will make sure of that. GRA is just a small example – she feels OK with it, therefore everyone else should, and indeed must in future feel the same.
These, including what happened to AS, are only first steps. There will be more to come. Much more. If she gets her way – i.e. if she and her pals get away with these first steps now – where will she and they be ten years from now? And where will we be? In retrospect, these things might look very tame in comparison with what will be happening then.
Meanwhile, even now, those who desist from whatever is OK with her must be resisted, opposed, ejected, crushed and (the bus is rolling) … run over, totally expunged … which ultimately eliminated. Yes, not simply driven out, and not just not even tolerated. Why should they be allowed to exist at all? Extermination beckons.
What AS is defending is the rule of law. Once that is gone, everything goes with it – until there is nothing left. Take a look at the smoking ruins of Berlin in 1945, while the perpetrator and his pals were lying in their bunker still warm, and newly dead.
What starts with little steps leads to bigger ones, and bigger still – even to giant steps, and it can all happen very very quickly.
I don’t think this is alarmist. I think it is realistic. It has happened before. The depths of human evil are not to be underestimated, or waved away with an airy, smug, self-satisfied and potentially disastrous ‘it couldn’t happen here’.
Oh yes, it could. Just look at the state of our Press, for a start … It’s already happening, under our noses …
AS was brilliant yesterday. Time for us to learn the lessons, and take our stand.
NEW LETTER EXCHANGE.
“as First Minister wriggled Jim REFUSES to be shaken off” #salmondspeaks
link to yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com
-Wull-
A chilling thought and one which I had not considered.
-Cath-
Agreed, the English media at least has **some** diversity of thought. In Scotland there is the unionist media and the “nationalist” media which is in reality the “Nicola Sturgeon and her friends” media just as the “nationalist” party is the “Nicola Sturgeon and her friends” party. Grim.
Wow, Wales are on fire in this Six Nations rugby Tournament, three out of three I think, the latest a 40-24 defeat of England.
Nicola defamed Alex. From the Scotsman.
“As well as the new complaint from ex-SNP deputy leader Jim Sillars that this broke the Ministerial Code, it is arguably as defamatory a statement as you are likely to hear, and to defend it she would have to prove something which a jury has already said Mr Salmond did not do.
That could plunge the whole thing back into court and drag the women back into the witness box. In the space of one angry sentence, Ms Sturgeon has opened herself up to legal action of potentially enormous proportions.”
Although the women wouldn’t be dragged in. That’s been done and dusted. He was innocent. No crime.
Defamation by a lawyer and the FM. TUT TUT.
Craig Murrry also added a comment recently regarding Woman D who alleged Salmond was touching her face while she slept in a car…
Craig Murray
Exactly. And it is absolutely untrue.
The truth of that incident was he was in an official car with the person and two others. They reached the Hong Kong border check and he touched her cheek to wake her up gently for her passport.
You have read lies. I heard it in court.”
The Rev revealed on here that the much quoted “Edinburgh Airport Incident” amounted to Salmond making a joke at security. Someone ahead of him was asked to remove their high heeled shoes and Salmond quipped that they must be ‘killer heels’. That was f**king it believe it or not.
All of this stuff, these charges, are a pile of puffed up contrived pish.
I have had a very poor opinion of the Scottish justice system for a long time.
It is only the honesty and integrity, not to forget bravery, of ordinary Scots that saved an innocent person being jailed.
A vast majority of ordinary Scottish people are thoroughly decent.
The Alex Salmond led governments were an example of decency to the whole world.
The current SNP leader is the nastiest most disgraceful Scot ever.
She has thoroughly corrupted every organ of the State by putting in place her sycophants to head them.
Justice will only be served when the whole lot of them spend decades behind bars.
Reverend, may I pick you up on one small point?
You wrote `she’s a fucking liar.’
Of course, you’re absolutely right that she’s a liar, but I strongly suspect that she isn’t a f***ing.
Whatever other problems Murrell may have, I don’t believe he’s a reptophile (physically attracted to reptiles – which is what Nicola Sturgeon is) so I suspect he’d have difficulties delivering in certain departments.
She simply does not accept the decision of the jury or the judge.
What a state to be in we have to get rid of her and the sooner the better
we simply cant have someone taking such a line
At least we can understand where rape crisis Scotland and the BBC have been getting their script
After Mr Salmond’s appearance yesterday I thought it would be very difficult for those involved with the stitch-up to get away with what they’d done. After some of the conversations on social media I’m not so sure.
The FM has access to the evidence that Mr Salmond has and is pretty confident that she can bluff her way around it, the committee is not exactly neutral and only Ms Baillie and Murdo are likely to get to the point, the Yes movement, especially the SNP faction still see her as Mammy bear and will follow her regardless of any evidence (Scottish Labour!!) and the majority of the press have invested too much in keeping her in post to turn on her.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see a very confident, no-blinking FM in front of a very tame committee being cheered on by her adoring fans.
Final bit. The way Mr Salmond has been treated firstly by the false accusations and then by continued attacks that he is guilty regardless of the court outcome is not unusual. He was lucky to have the money and support to win his case, many don’t, and are in jail based purely on the word of a women and the bias in the police and court service.
Surely the ministerial code exists to stop parliament falling into disrepute? Nicola Sturgeon is a liar beyond any shadow of a doubt, and by lying she breaks the ministerial code and brings parliament into disrepute. She has no option but to resign, and resign now, especially in light of Alex Salmond’s bravura performance yesterday. The longer she delays the worse it will be for everyone. When the law makers are allowed to persist in their law breaking then we have a serious problem. It is also worth noting that in order to obey the law, we have to consider ourselves subject to the law.
_”Has everyone had a fucking lobotomy today, or are you all just trying to piss me off for laughs?”_
Indeed. What makes me particularly uneasy is the lack of “ooft…this could be *any* of us in this situation”
Simple question for your next poll:
Scottish men / Scottish women
i) “do you trust the Scottish legal system with your innocence?”
ii) “do you trust the Scottish media with your legally proven innocence?”
No argument from me, I was cogitating on something different:
I still think, that the peppering of ‘malicious’ throughout yesterday by both sides, will ensure there will be plenty of “Good faith” statements to come from NS.
The Lord Advocate (in his apology statement abount the RFC debacle) took great pains to explain that technically, something could be found to have been maliciously prosecuted, but that didn’t mean the individual(s) behind it were ‘malicious’ in the common understanding of the term.
So, that left and leaves scope for ‘it was all a cock-up, nobody was actually being malicious, it was all done in good faith – they were just dumb all over (and a little ugly on the side)
Ergo: there was no ulterior, personal ‘malicious’ motive, no vindictive conspiracy to nail Alex specifically. Just a very unfortunate fuck-up.
Following the Lord Advocate, there will then be: ‘Lessons have been learned and continue to be learned…safeguards have been put in place to ensure such a thing doesn’t happen again (until it does) yada yada.
I found it curious Alex used the term at all – he certainly must be familiar with the Lord Advocate’s clarification on interpretation of meaning and the lifeline it gave the Lord Advocate (and anyone else) to wriggle free from charges of actual vindictive and malicious intent.
Anyway, I await the plethora of “Good Faith” defences and have my drinking game at the ready.
A quick reminder for those who still doubt the validity of the jury’s decisions in Alex’s trial.
Alex faced not one accuser, or two, or three, but thirteen.
Thirteen.
And he was found not guilty for all of them in Scottish law.
More and more evidence is emerging that it was planned, a deliberate attempt to put him in prison, likely for the rest of his life.
Thirteen.
Someone sat down and figured out it would that many false testimonies (according to the jury) to put him away, regardless of the cost to him, his family, or just as importantly, the integrity of Scottish law. (And as a result Scottish Advocates issued a letter of concern, when the FM suggested publicly, during a Covid report, the jury’s verdict was to be considered inferior when compared to ‘public opinion’, or in reality, her opinion, in her determined push for personal political expedience, and survival)
Thirteen.
Truly an intended stitch up of significant proportions, by a group dedicated to the preservation of the Murrell Cult. And followed up by an inquiry as rigged as any can be. A sham of an inquiry tory fascists would be proud to call their own.
I hope Alex goes on a legal hunt to rival any other, targeting every journalist, politician, civil servant, and organization that has continued the myth of “the jury got it wrong” and “he got lucky this time, but he’s really guilty” (and paraphrases of this.)
While the scottish justice minister is busy trying to enact a bill that will have families reporting each other for anything labelled as hate speech (as a result of petulance around the dinner table or otherwise), he is deliberately ignoring what was, and still is, a massive legal wrongdoing according to the laws we ALREADY have.
A deliberate, amoral, and most profoundly, politically corrupt witchhunt of a man found completely innocent by a jury of his peers, by the scottish government and it’s cult, spread across the civil service and other arms of both the scottish and british establishment.
Sturgeon herself stated on Marr that she never saw AS behave inappropriately and now she’s going around claiming how bad he was. She’s a joke. It is no surprise that she never made it far as a lawyer. I’m just not sure how anyone thought she was leader material but then again she was managed by AS so perhaps these odious traits of hers were not allowed to surface.
The story is like Topsy-it grows and grows and I must admit to a developing interest though I do not live in Scotland (Or England)
I wonder if anyone can help me with this; at the criminal trial-as I understand it- the defence on behalf of Mr Salmond were prevented by the learned Judge from advancing a defence of conspiracy on the part of some or all of the complainants/witnesses including, presumably, cross-examining on that basis
Again if my understanding is right then one of the complainants is agreed by all concerned to have sent a message (the ‘I have a plan’ message) to other/s A conspiracy only needs an agreement between two or more people to do an illegal act-
Does any Scots legal eagle know whether this indeed was the ruling of the learned judge and
If it was would that be viewed as unusual under these circumstances in the Scottish courts?
In the OJ Simpson trial the killer was that the gloves didn’t fit. Was that police incompetence or what?
No it was the simple fact that leather gloves can shrink depending on exposure to various conditions such as moisture etc. Basic stuff.
“it means that the behaviour complained of did not meet the bar of it being criminal”
I disagree. It is not the jury’s job to determine if the “behaviour did meet or not the bar of being criminal”. That is the job of the prosecution and a lousy job at that one they did if by their standards pulling somebody’s hair or putting a hand on a knee is criminal. But hey, that is what the prosecution brought forward. The criminality of the alleged event was already established, otherwise they would have never been in that court.
The jury’s job is to determine with the evidence before them, if the behaviour the person is accused of happened or not.
The result was: no guilty or no proven. In other words, the jury did not believe he did it or in one case it could not be proven if it happen with the evidence provided.
Lorna: ” If the women are still not satisfied, they would have to bring a private civil prosecution against Mr Salmond. I hope they will listen to advice on that and eschew any such action because they will surely lose again.” But if the charges that the Crown brought to Alex Salmond were true, why would they not fight for it despite legal advice? Again, these charges were profoundly serious, and to suggest, as the First Minister and others have, that the verdict “doesn’t mean the complained-of behaviour didn’t happen” must mean that they approved of the police & Crown’s decision that this behaviour was criminal, and quite seriously criminal at that.
Mac, while I don’t particularly appreciate the inference of your wariness, I can’t exactly blame you either given the invective surrounding this case. The reason I didn’t go over the defense was because it seemed superfluous given the jury returned Not Guilty/Proven verdicts, ergo suggesting the jury decided there was, at least, reasonable doubt that the events took place. In the interests of fairness, it was very good of you to include them, and I shall do the same in future.
Derek, well, in my (ultimately pointless) defense, I did say tried: you can’t exactly be tried for a charge that doesn’t make it to court. Nonetheless, a fair point.
The criminality of the alleged event was already established, otherwise they would have never been in that court.
Put like that, it makes it even worse that so many clearly not criminal things were used to bring a man to court.
We’ve heard Nicola Sturgeon repeatedly question the judgement of the judge and the jury on this. Then she turns round and says she hasn’t! Couple this with her replying to Jim Sillars complaint of her which was addressed to Lesley Evans then it’s straight out the Stasi rule book! It’s like we’re through the looking glass now. Her judgements of late are way below what we all expect of a decent leader.
I saw she broke her Twitter silence earlier today to comment on Anas Sarwar becoming the branch manager of British Labour in Scotland she said “I like him and I rate him “.
Remind us , who has got the ego problem again!
Derek M Morison says:
In terms of the ongoing proceedings of the Parliamentary Committee it’s important to bear in mind that the two original Complainers there designated A & B are NOT the same women described as A & B in the trial.
Ruby replies
Thanks for that info.
Is it known what the original charges were & which letters they were designated at the trial?
Does anyone else find it worrying that not one SNP official, MSP or MP, councillor or other has actually stood up and called Nicolas Sturgeon out properly for her actions ?
I’m reading her response to Jim Sillars and thinking ‘she’s loopy and dangerous’
(Yes, before anyone starts, I am aware of Cherry and Kenny and Chris etc and there valiant efforts and reason and question, but afaik no one has actually had the nerve to stand up and say ‘she should resign immediately’ )
Tinto, thanks. I haven’t commented on here in a long time, but I was moved to by some of the sheer audacity of some comments by people whose opinions I held in high esteem. Independence supporters are supposed to be better than this, and yet…
It is long past being more about whose lies are sweetest than who’s lying per say so to sugarcoat the claim that attacks on the prosecution service are really rather disgraceful, etc. it might be helpful if the harassment committee can establish how many people are serving time for hair pinging, knee squeezing and other such sexual assaults – and clarify how many were heard by a jury (and why/ why not) prior to being put there.
Bonus being that, following the recent Bowes Lyon guilty plea (presumably to avoid a lengthy trial and harming the extended family by association), those who are not allowed to be politically motivated in the slightest might deserve a share of the budget for malicious prosecutions too – so forcing the department to showcase its work in a more positive light might better strengthen morale at such a difficult time (peak bullshit) for all concerned.
Wait.
Jim Sillar’s writes to Leslie Evans to complaint that Sturgeon breached the ministerial code. He requests Ms Evans, if not handling it herself, writes to inform him who will be handling it.
Sturgeon writes back to inform him she has decided she didn’t break the ministerial code.
s this even remotely acceptable behaviour? Does the First Minister now decide for herself if she broke the code? She is her own judge now?
What? What? What am I missing here?
Taranaich
the jury returned Not Guilty/Proven verdicts, ergo suggesting the jury decided there was, at least, reasonable doubt that the events took place
They only returned a not proven verdict to one minor charge, which to my mind says they gave serious consideration to each of the charge and found all the others as unbelievable.
Mike Hovit6.31pm
Mike, SALMOND’S solicitors are sitting on a mountain of evidence that hasn’t even been discussed at this hearing, why the hell is no one interested in it?
The Chair of this committee was told yesterday, so why are they not working all through the weekend to get them examined in time to be presented on Monday.
They can’t turn round and say they didn’t know about them.
How frustrating this whole fiasco is.
Banana Republic is doing a disservice to a banana.
Not only 13 accusers, none of them appealed the jury’s decision.
Why? Because all of them had been lying?
Anyone who now questions the verdict is in contempt of court.
And to think that this nasty disgraceful woman is a lawyer.
The whole lot would be prosecuted and be sentenced to decades behind bars, if only Scotland had a fair and decent justice system.
What I don’t understand with Sturgeon is that she is talking so strongly about wanting protect and encourage women to speak up if they have been harrassed, intimidated etc. However, this only seems to apply to Alex Salmond. In Cunninghame North, loads of allegations were made against Kenny Gibson MSP from women who complained to SNP HQ but she and the SNP did nothing to investigate or support those concerned. You can only conclude that she is only interested if it is about a powerful rival and not just one of the pawn SNP MSPs.
Have to disagree with you rev. Part of the juries’ job is to decide whether actions constitute a crime. Actions can be completely uncontested, but there’s still a court case, as the jury has to decide whether these actions constitute the crime that the accused is charged with.
So it is valid to say that actions did happen as alleged, but no crime was committed.
I am not supporting sturgeon. I think that she or the cabal around her are rotten.
From Dani Garavelli’s Tortoise Media article”Woman K is one of two women whose complaints about Salmond prompted the original Scottish government inquiry back in early 2018, just months after the Harvey Weinstein story broke.”
“Woman F – the other original complainant, who never actively sought criminal charges”
link to tortoisemedia.com
List of charges in previous comment
@Wull 6.32: yes, that’s where the Hate Crime Bill is going. “I feel offended, so you’re censored, Poindexter!”
As I keep saying, never forget that Yousaf proposed even worse for Scottish courts last summer: no cross-examination, no automatic right of appeal, “phoned in” video testimony and no jury trial. Covid, the virus that just keeps giving for the authoritarian wokelings.
Multiplied organisms all over the place for the utterly corrupt SG, no doubt, but they had to pull back from this when the legal profession began to push against it (perhaps, cynically, through potential loss of earnings on the defence side).
@Taranaich 7.13: lay on, MacDuff 😉 !
Jim Sillars & Kenny MacAskill have been writing about the Murrels for quite a long time.
I don’t think they were taken seriously in the beginning.
Might be interesting to search the archives and see what they were saying a couple of years ago.
Im English and generally for the Union. (Sorry to intrude.) But would not for a second deny a Scot democratic vote for Independence. (Out of politeness, please wait til HMQ is no longer with us.)
I think I am going to my damn best to support the SNP; because this SNP is the biggest democratic obstacle to independence anyone could possibly contrive.
(When your counterpart is making a mistake, don’t interrupt.)
Alex salmond needs to ask himself now was there anything, anything at all in Nicola’s past behaviour that could call into question her loyalty to the cause.
I read NS response to Jim Sillars and his reply requesting that his complaint is moved to higher authority.
The Ministerial code is begining to resemble the Pirates code “The Code is more what you would call guidelines, than actual rules”
When will the high paid legal eagles sort this shit out!
I suspect NS will get back in and I am deeply worried for the future.
I am just recently unemployed after working in Finance for global companies for 40 years in Scotland and have, for the first time, contemplated leaving Scotland.
In my daily dealings with people all around the globe, Scots were always held in high respect for hard work, fairness,intelligence, financial acumen and humour.
What the fuck is going on ?
The recent events have just shit on all this, we live in a global world where Twatter and Farcebook have become the mouthpiece of the uneducted and pishbabbling fools.
I try to be reasonable, but all this shit is driving me to borderline alcoholism and my latent sychosis is getting worse
tartanfever says:
“Does anyone else find it worrying that not one SNP official, MSP or MP, councillor or other has actually stood up and called Nicolas Sturgeon out properly for her actions ?”
Even when the likes of Thatcher and Blair had massive majorities, there were open dissenters from their own parties.
The SNP has been poisoned beyond redemption. It cannot be reformed from within, even if this nasty disgraceful woman has been forced to resign.
The only clean solution is a new party with only one policy – independence.
Alex salmond needs to ask himself now was there anything, anything at all in Nicola’s past behaviour that could call into question her loyalty to the cause.
She simply can’t be trusted. Stu I am sorry I doubted your previously stated positions re nicola. She is simply not fit to hold office. SHE IS STARTING TO SOUND LIKE TRUMP
Mike, SALMOND’S solicitors are sitting on a mountain of evidence that hasn’t even been discussed at this hearing, why the hell is no one interested in it?
Is there any way some or all of it be published outwith the committee at a later date, if the committee refuses to publish it? Or is it all subject to court orders that would keep it hidden? If the latter, presumably a judge led inquiry or malicious prosecution case would bring it to light if either were to be brought?
Mike @7.38pm.
I’m pretty sure most Scots don’t give a monkey’s about Old Queen Lizzie, dissolving this vile union is far more important. Lizzie will still be purring like a cat in her 776 roomed palace regardless of whether or not we exit the union.
Mike Hovit @ 7:38 pm
“Im English and generally for the Union.”
So are perhaps as many as one million ‘No’ voters in Scotland, unfortunately, maybe half the ‘No’ vote.
Its no surprise this group mostly reject the offer of Scottish nationality as it is not their national identity. But they really don’t have to block it for the Scots and prevent our right to national ‘self-determination’.
Hi ‘No more corruption’ at 5:40 pm.
You enquired,
“Hi all, I can’t find the video where Sturgeon said this on Thursday. Tried BBC iplayer but can’t see anything. I have some video of Sturgeon using up time challenging Salmond but the specific footage that Jim Sillers is referring to I can’t find. If anyone has a link please let me know as it would be really helpful.”
link to twitter.com
(You’ll have to increase volume to max.)
So here’s the question. If Sturgeon is so sure that AS acted inappropriately with colleagues, staff etc. why the fuck did she not do something about it at the time? Why did she not blow the whistle? If, on the other hand, she had no knowledge or evidence of such behaviour, why didn’t she take his word? They had been close friends and colleagues for a good number of years. With friends like that…
To those on the thread asking. The front page of the Times today carried the story that Salmond’s solicitors are being asked for their evidence on Monday morning. Good
I don’t understand why Nicola replied to Jim S. I would have expected her to ignore him, it’s bizarre.
Cath 7.48pm
If there is evidence out there relevant to this case, then it needs to be heard IN PUBLIC.
The logical answer to all of this.
Evans has something on Sturgeon. It explains why Evans is still in a job. It’s not rocket science. Murrell is probably up to his eyes in something, so Sturgeon can’t get rid of Evans.
FYI I somehow acquired two copies of’Judges, juries and horsemen… if anyone needs one, Pete Astor rocks in a shy way. Mr Campbell… salute!
Alf exactly. The English moving to Scotland and denying Scots what they want is a downright degrading situation.
No other ethnic group in Scotland has such a hang up about another nations demicracy.
If Ms Sturgeon leaves politics she could return to practising as a solicitor.
She would require a period of retraining and be expected to abide by the Law Society of Scotland’s Protocol of High Standards expected of those in Practice.
Just a thought.
Hi Denise.
The Times’ story.
link to archive.is
Taranaich says:
27 February, 2021 at 3:56 pm
Alex Salmond was arrested and tried under the following charges:
1. Indecent assault of a woman on various occasions in June and July 2008 in Glasgow by kissing her on the mouth and touching her buttocks and breast with his hands over her clothing.
2. Sexual assault of the same woman on an occasion in December 2010 at Ego, a nightclub in Edinburgh, by touching her arms, breasts and hips with his hands over her clothing.
3. Indecent assault of a woman on an occasion between October and November 2010 at Bute House in Edinburgh by repeatedly seizing her by her wrists and repeatedly pulling her towards him and attempting to kiss her.
4. Sexual assault of a woman in a car travelling between Holyrood Road and Waverley Station in Edinburgh on an occasion in February 2011 by touching her leg with his hand over her clothing.
5. Sexual assault of a woman on various occasions between May 2011 and June 2013 at Bute House, at the Scottish Parliament and elsewhere by touching her buttocks with his hands over her clothing, and touching and stroking her hair.
6. Sexual assault of a woman on an occasion between November and December 2013 at Bute House by kissing her on the mouth.
7. Intent to rape of the same woman on an occasion in December 2013 at Bute House by causing her to sit on a bed, lie on top of her, make sexual remarks to her, touch her buttocks, thighs and breasts over her clothing with his hands, repeatedly kiss her face, struggle with her and pull up her dress.
8. Sexual assault of a woman on an occasion in March 2012 at Ubiquitous Chip, a restaurant in Ashton Lane, Glasgow, by touching her buttocks with his hand over her clothing.
9. Sexual assault of the same woman on an occasion in April 2014 at Bute House by placing his arm around her, making sexual remarks to her and attempting to kiss her.
10. Sexual assault of a woman on an occasion in May 2014 at Bute House by placing his arm around her body, placing his hand under her clothing and underwear and touching her breast, repeatedly kissing her on the face and neck and stroking her leg with his hand.
11. Attempted rape of the same woman on an occasion in June 2014 at Bute House by lifting her legs and placing them over his legs, repeatedly kissing her on the face and neck, placing his hand inside her upper clothing and touching her breast over her underwear, repeatedly blocking her path, pinning her against a wall, removing his clothing and underwear, pushing her on to a bed, kneeling over her, pinning her to the bed by her shoulder, lying naked on top of her and then trying to rape her.
12. Sexual assault of a woman on an occasion in September 2014 at Bute House by seizing her by her shoulders, repeatedly kissing her on the face, attempting to kiss her on the lips, and touching her leg and face with his hand.
13. Sexual assault of a woman on an occasion in November 2014 at Stirling Castle by touching her buttock with his hand over her clothing.
Ruby replies
Thanks for that list Taranaich. Are you or anyone else able to put the appropriate alphabet letter next to these charges.
Doubt Sturgeon could practice as a solicitor, she just qualified first time around ….barely and has not practiced since. Seems to be the qualification for politics these days, School, uni, bare minimum to get qualified and then enter politics with no real life experience or maturity.
Leslie Evans killed a guy. Yes, she did. Leslie Evans killed a guy. Leslie Evans killed a guy.
-Jack Murphy-
Both Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton were struck off as lawyers for their conduct in office, so not impossible.
Ruby replies
Thanks for that list Taranaich. Are you or anyone else able to put the appropriate alphabet letter next to these charges.
SEE Mac at 6.17pm
Mac says:
27 February, 2021 at 6:17 pm
And of course the most important list – the jury’s verdicts.
Charge 1 indecent assault Woman A – NG
Charge 2 sexual assault Woman A – NG
Charge 3 indecent assault Woman B – NG
Charge 4 sexual assault Woman C – NG
Charge 5 sexual assault Woman D – NG
Charge 6 – PREVIOUSLY DROPPED
Charge 7 sexual assault Woman F- NG
Charge 8 sexual assault with intent to rape Woman F – Not proven
Charge 9 sexual assault Woman G – NG
Charge 10 sexually assault Woman G – NG
Charge 11 sexual assault Woman H – NG
Charge 12 attempted rape Woman H – NG
Charge 13 Sexual assault Woman J – NG
Charge 14 sexual assault Woman K – NG
Far be it for me to ever support Nicola Sturgeon, but to suggest that because a person is not found guilty of a crime the incident didn’t take place is just silly. To do so is to suggest the complainers in this case are guilty of a very serious attempt to pervert the course of justice. As you say, the jurors have made no comment as to their deliberations and their reasoning behind their decision. It’s a presumption to suggest they thought ALL the complainers were lying.
Derek M Morison says:
From Dani Garavelli’s Tortoise Media article”Woman K is one of two women whose complaints about Salmond prompted the original Scottish government inquiry back in early 2018, just months after the Harvey Weinstein story broke.”
“Woman F – the other original complainant, who never actively sought criminal charges”
Ruby replies
Do you think Dani Gravelli got it wrong?
I wonder what she means by Woman F never actively sought criminal charges.
from earlier post:
Mac says:
K.
On to Woman K, who says Alex Salmond touched her bottom as they had their photo taken – he says “it didn’t happen, I didn’t grab her bottom.”
On to Woman F, the charge of sexual assault with intent to rape. Alex Salmond says the two had a “sleepy cuddle” on his bed after drinking Chinese liquor. He says “it shouldn’t have happened”, but says it was a cuddle and there was “no struggle whatsoever”. Jackson notes this is a charge of sexual assault with intent to rape. “It’s not true” says Alex Salmond. “Not in the slightest. I’ve never attempted to have non-consensual sexual relations with anyone in my entire life.”
“It means that the behaviour complained of did not meet the bar of it being criminal.”
That is not true. It means that it was beyond reasonable doubt that there was any substance to the allegations.
Thanks to Brian DTT for the archived Times article.Much appreciated.
I was struck by this during Mr Salmond’s testimony yesterday, which the Times picked up “he was shown a memory stick with evidence of interventions by senior SNP officials, including Peter Murrell, the party’s chief executive and Sturgeon’s husband,”
Were the messages from Mr Murrell that Mr Macaskill revealed some time ago originally on the memory stick?
Do Mr Salmond’s lawyers have the memory stick in their possession?
If so, does it contain some or all of the evidence that has been suppressed, including the Vietnam group’s?
link to news.sky.com
They’ll be no whistle-blowers. Whistle-blowers are hanged and their bodies disected and hung from lamp-posts on the Royal Mile. That’s what happens in Scotland.
Taranaich at 7.11pm said:
Derek, well, in my (ultimately pointless) defense, I did say tried: you can’t exactly be tried for a charge that doesn’t make it to court. Nonetheless, a fair point.
Sorry to be so pedantic but Charge 6 WAS on the indictment read out at the start of the trial and only dropped by the Crown on Day 6 when Woman E wasn’t called as a witness. At that point AS stood up in court and was formally aquitted of that charge by Lady Dorian. I’m only bringing up this level of detail because a few people on here have commented on how hard it is to find a comprehensive account of the trial and the charges etc. and I’m only trying to help them piece together such limited accounts as are available.
Philip Sim podcasts are worth listening to
link to bbc.co.uk
Brunswickian
The jury gave not guilty verdicts, which means there was no substance to the claims. It is clearly the case that what was said to have happened did not. End of story, or perhaps not. That so much was claimed that did not actually happen goes beyond being reasonable misunderstanding. The defence proved time and again that what was claimed to have happened did not. So was there conspiracy ?
Ruby @ 8.40pm
Ruby replies
Do you think Dani Gravelli got it wrong?
I wonder what she means by Woman F never actively sought criminal charges.
No,Garavelli is referring to Women F&K as the 2 women who made formal complaints via the SG procedure the Holyrood Committee is currently investigating. We have heard in Committee evidence that the complaints were passed to the police by SG against the wishes of the 2 women themselves.
An important thing to note when NS speaks to journalists etc.
A comment she very often uses is .
“It’s important that we don’t lose sight of that”
She used it again to attack the jury verdict and AS.Something really needs to be done about this.
Brunswickian says:
“To do so is to suggest the complainers in this case are guilty of a very serious attempt to pervert the course of justice.”
I would say they are, because they accepted the verdict – they didn’t legally appeal against it.
They have only illegally appealed against it through the BBC, Sturgeon, Rape Crisis Scotland and the media.
They are not being charged because the Lord Advocate is utterly corrupt.
Willie Hogg 8:53PM
Beat me to it
Brunswickian says:
27 February, 2021 at 8:37 pm
Far be it for me to ever support Nicola Sturgeon, but to suggest that because a person is not found guilty of a crime the incident didn’t take place is just silly.
Ruby replies
An attempted rape happened but the person being charged was not the guilty party. Is that what you mean?
Or do you mean like Nicola Sturgeon that an attempted rape happened but the jury got it wrong.
As Taranaich’s comment outlined above, the charges brought before the court:
Alex Salmond was arrested and tried under the following charges:
1. Indecent assault of a woman on various occasions in June and July 2008 in Glasgow by kissing her on the mouth and touching her buttocks and breast with his hands over her clothing.
2. Sexual assault of the same woman on an occasion in December 2010 at Ego, a nightclub in Edinburgh, by touching her arms, breasts and hips with his hands over her clothing.
3. Indecent assault of a woman on an occasion between October and November 2010 at Bute House in Edinburgh by repeatedly seizing her by her wrists and repeatedly pulling her towards him and attempting to kiss her.
4. Sexual assault of a woman in a car travelling between Holyrood Road and Waverley Station in Edinburgh on an occasion in February 2011 by touching her leg with his hand over her clothing.
5. Sexual assault of a woman on various occasions between May 2011 and June 2013 at Bute House, at the Scottish Parliament and elsewhere by touching her buttocks with his hands over her clothing, and touching and stroking her hair.
6. Sexual assault of a woman on an occasion between November and December 2013 at Bute House by kissing her on the mouth.
7. Intent to rape of the same woman on an occasion in December 2013 at Bute House by causing her to sit on a bed, lie on top of her, make sexual remarks to her, touch her buttocks, thighs and breasts over her clothing with his hands, repeatedly kiss her face, struggle with her and pull up her dress.
8. Sexual assault of a woman on an occasion in March 2012 at Ubiquitous Chip, a restaurant in Ashton Lane, Glasgow, by touching her buttocks with his hand over her clothing.
9. Sexual assault of the same woman on an occasion in April 2014 at Bute House by placing his arm around her, making sexual remarks to her and attempting to kiss her.
10. Sexual assault of a woman on an occasion in May 2014 at Bute House by placing his arm around her body, placing his hand under her clothing and underwear and touching her breast, repeatedly kissing her on the face and neck and stroking her leg with his hand.
11. Attempted rape of the same woman on an occasion in June 2014 at Bute House by lifting her legs and placing them over his legs, repeatedly kissing her on the face and neck, placing his hand inside her upper clothing and touching her breast over her underwear, repeatedly blocking her path, pinning her against a wall, removing his clothing and underwear, pushing her on to a bed, kneeling over her, pinning her to the bed by her shoulder, lying naked on top of her and then trying to rape her.
12. Sexual assault of a woman on an occasion in September 2014 at Bute House by seizing her by her shoulders, repeatedly kissing her on the face, attempting to kiss her on the lips, and touching her leg and face with his hand.
13. Sexual assault of a woman on an occasion in November 2014 at Stirling Castle by touching her buttock with his hand over her clothing.
As Mac’s comment outlined above, the defences position against those charges:
A.
“On to Woman A. Alex Salmond says claims he kissed and touched her are “a fabrication from start to finish”; they were out in public at the centre of attention, it “would be insane to be doing anything like that”. He says the claim he sexually assaulted Woman A is “not just a fabrication, it’s ludicrous”. He accuses Ms A of recruiting and encouraging five of the other accusers also to make fabrications against him. He describes Ms A as extremely close to Nicola Sturgeon. He says it “accusations make no sense whatsoever” and says Woman A has encouraged some of the other complainers to “exaggerate or make claims against me. Some are exaggerations that are taken out of proportion and I think that the impact of some of the publicity of the last 18 months might have led some people quite innocently to revise their opinions and say ‘oh well something happened to me’ and it gets presented in a totally different way. And [then] people get in a sausage machine and can’t get out of it, even if they want to.”
B.
On to the specific charges – Gordon Jackson, his QC, asks about the allegation by woman B about the Christmas card. Alex Salmond says she has “mis-remembered” – he says he took her hands and suggested they reenact the card as “a piece of fun” and “high jinks”. Story has “developed” over time. Asked if he now wonders if he went too far, Alex Salmond says “from where I’m standing now, yes…I rather I hadn’t told that joke or had that idea of fun. But at the time it wasn’t regarded as its being presented now”.
C.
On to Woman C – Jackson asks if Alex Salmond “disputes” the claim he touched her leg in the car. “Yes,” he says. He says back seat armrest couldn’t go back because it had a phone fitted in it; you couldn’t have your hand on someone’s knee without those in the front seeing.
D.
On to Woman D – Alex Salmond says he had no sexual contact with her but would occasionally “tug her hair” in an “affectionate gesture”, as it was so curly it would spring back immediately. He says he believes others did this too and that she never seemed offended or upset. He says they had attended the Ryder Cup for meetings as Scotland was hosting the next one at Gleneagles. He acknowledged further that Woman D had shown him a bikini shot of her holiday in Jamaica. He agrees that he told her she looked like Ursula Andress in ‘Dr No’. Alex Salmond says from where he stands now he wishes he’d been “more careful with people’s personal space”, but “I’m of the opinion that events are being reinterpreted and exaggerated out of any possible proportion”.
F.
On to Woman F, the charge of sexual assault with intent to rape. Alex Salmond says the two had a “sleepy cuddle” on his bed after drinking Chinese liquor. He says “it shouldn’t have happened”, but says it was a cuddle and there was “no struggle whatsoever”. Jackson notes this is a charge of sexual assault with intent to rape. “It’s not true” says Alex Salmond. “Not in the slightest. I’ve never attempted to have non-consensual sexual relations with anyone in my entire life.”
G.
On Woman G’s claim Alex Salmond touched her bottom after a dinner, Alex Salmond says any touching was on the stairs on the way in, when he gave her a “gentle shove to chivvy her up the stairs”, touching her lower back. He says it was “totally and utterly harmless”. On the other charge involving Woman G, of sexual assault at Bute House, Alex Salmond says he put his arm around her to “comfort” her but says he didn’t try to kiss her and says there was nothing sexual about it whatsoever. Adds, his wife Moira had been between Alex Salmond and Ms G when he reached up to give the shove.
H.
“Court back in open session. Jackson asks Alex Salmond about Woman H; he denies there was sexual contact on either of the occasions listed in the charges, but says there was a “consensual sexual encounter” on another occasion. Alex Salmond says there was a “consensual sexual liaison [with woman H] in the bedroom which did not involve full undress of either of us”, and says “we parted good friends with no damage done”. He says this was on a date prior to those in the two charges which he denies happened.
l. Back in session. Gordon Jackson is taking court through Alex Salmond’s diary and calendar for the month of one of the charges involving Woman H – defence has lodged a special defence of alibi on this charge. After running through a series of dates, Jackson says from the diary and calendar, is there any time that month that Woman H could have been at Bute House with Alex Salmond? “No there’s not”, he says. On to the attempted rape charge; Alex Salmond says he was “never” involved in anything like this with Woman H. He says he remembers the dinner with a celebrity she says she was at and says it’s “not possible” Woman H was there. He says he remembers the dinner and “she wasn’t there”.
m. Jackson says Alex Salmond’s position couldn’t be simpler – the allegation is “just a lie”. “Yes, that’s correct,” he says. He says Woman F was annoyed that he hadn’t backed her in a personal political project. Defence concludes questioning of Alex Salmond.”
J.
On to Woman J – the “zombie impression” claim – Alex Salmond says this didn’t happen; he says the only physical contact he had with Woman J was to tap her on the nose before he went off to bed, leaving her working on his computer. He says “nothing improper” happened.
K.
On to Woman K, who says Alex Salmond touched her bottom as they had their photo taken – he says “it didn’t happen, I didn’t grab her bottom.”
As Mac’s comment outlined above, all of the charges against Alex Salmond with alphabet complainants letter signified and outcomes of each charge:
Charge 1 indecent assault Woman A – NG*
Charge 2 sexual assault Woman A – NG
Charge 3 indecent assault Woman B – NG
Charge 4 sexual assault Woman C – NG
Charge 5 sexual assault Woman D – NG
Charge 6 – PREVIOUSLY DROPPED
Charge 7 sexual assault Woman F- NG
Charge 8 sexual assault with intent to rape Woman F – Not proven
Charge 9 sexual assault Woman G – NG
Charge 10 sexually assault Woman G – NG
Charge 11 sexual assault Woman H – NG
Charge 12 attempted rape Woman H – NG
Charge 13 Sexual assault Woman J – NG
Charge 14 sexual assault Woman K – NG
*NG = Not Guilty
Yes, it really is ‘as if’ the incidents didn’t take place, ‘in the manner they were described on the charges presented to the court’ by the prosecution’ Therefore it surely can be a ‘reasonable’ assumption given the verdict of the jury, that having heard both the complainants/prosecution case and the defense case, the jury acquitted Alex of all charges bar the not proven, which is explained above re the alphabet letter associated with that verdict of not proven. Because the prosecution’s case was not believed by the jury, i.e. those events/incidents according to the jury’s verdict did not in fact take place.
Aye well I needed a laugh and the ladies over the wall in la la Land never fail to disappoint totally priceless out of this world bat shit crazy everyone one of them,
First it was the Three Monkey tribute act ,we know nothing, nothing’s happening and nothing has happened that was Friday by the way When all the media in Scotland were tuned into the latest session of the Inquiry into the government fk up during the complaints miss handling fk up and according to the ladies of there it never happened ha ha yep never took place,
What’s the first sign of grief eh is it Denial they are all off for a paddle in Denial
A picture of them in a circle chanting get him Nicola ,get him Nicola , while sticking pins in a doll with the likeness of Alex Salmond comes to mind , get him Nicola, get him Nicola , ffs bliss blissful fkn Stupidity and blind faith what would it take to wake thes and fkrs up ? or maybe just let them sleep after all like their goddess they have never and will never pose a threat to the Union all talk and NO knickers that’s right isn’t it ladies .
Popped on to read the comments.
Can see lots of people don’t understand Scots Law or Contempt of Court Act.
I despair.
Is this debate either helpful or legal….can’t see the point when the oucome of the trial has been in the pubilc domain.
Alex Salmond is a diamond.
Watched it all yesterday and what a re-fresh.
Sturgeon is a dangerous, weird person.
Fabiani performed better than I thought she would. Condescending in places, just keeping her own place, don’t really know why 😉
Mitchell – I struggle to make her out, speech wise.
Watt poison dwarf
Allan had so much to say today and missed the point. Duck
McMillan – no relation of mine.
Hamilton – don’t let him back in the sweetie shop ffs.
Murdo – what was that? Shock or pretend shock moment?
Wightman – usual, see how it goes then cave.
Baillie batting for the wrong side… not really 😉
What a Statesman Alex is. What a clever man. A honest man. He knows shitty politics inside, out. Not a body can match him, none on this planet. See what we are missing.
Now we have liars and misfits controlling our future. Misfits – I’m being generous.
The Scottish politic has gone to cock with Sturgeon. We need to pull it back pretty sharpish.
Alex was truly great yesterday, as always. Maybe come back with Yes Now?? He will be back with his bonnet and laser brain. I also noticed and love his sense of humour and cheeky chappiness. Still there, true Scotsman.
Alex Salmond A DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH.
Loved and appreciated and thank you, you STAR!!!!
There’s a lot of arseholes on this site atm. You won’t win btw 😉 Good Night to the good guys. The rest get on with your festering…ad infinitum 😉 😉
I think in any other country/nation on the planet then Sturgeon and her cabal are gone if not going to jail on any number of changes. But not in the UK or Scotland in 2021. That thought utterly depresses me.
I think in any other country/nation on the planet then Sturgeon and her cabal are gone if not going to jail on any number of changes. But not in the UK or Scotland in 2021. That thought utterly depresses me.
Ooops I meant to say and number of charges.
Change of subject but was there any truth to this stu?
link to thescottishsun.co.uk
So Adam, you are accused of a crime charged and tried in court. The jury after hearing the extensive evidence finds you not guilty and you leave the court a free man.
But lots of people say publically that although you were found not guilty it doesn’t mean that “it didn’t happen“ and according to you they are perfectly right.
Your outstanding stupidity and hypocrisy are outstanding.
Mac, something else to consider with several of the plotters/accusers. By adding their names and accusations to the list/group they then afford themselves the shield of anonymity. That is why some of the charges seem so spurious.
Will people stop with these insane ramblings on the trail.
It’s over for heavens sake, OVER!
TRIAL
Christ, she’s so like Blair, isn’t she? Her name will be as cursed as his now is.
Most damning for me is that it was suggested that pressure was exerted on Police Scotland and they appear to have caved into it. If that is true then the Chief Constable and few others at Police Scotland have to resign immediately. They have to be cleaner than clean and whiter than white. Livingston needs to go also.
LM says: 9:39 pm
It’s in the Sun for fuck sake, do you beleive any of the infantile shite they publish in the name of journalism, for that matter the BBC, STV, Sky the Herald etc etc.
I hate modern Journalists ( just broke the hate crime there) as they have absolutely no journalistic ability apart for being sweetie wives and are only keen to get a story, the more sensational the better. No fucking morals as to who they hurt or defame along the way.
I have a previous axe to grind with these immoral bastards.
I’m compiling a list with all info re the different alphabet women to try and get it all straight in my mind.
I’ll keep adding as I find new info.
Woman A 1. Indecent assault of a woman on various occasions in June and July 2008 in Glasgow by kissing her on the mouth and touching her buttocks and breast with his hands over her clothing.
Woman A 2. Sexual assault of the same woman on an occasion in December 2010 at Ego, a nightclub in Edinburgh, by touching her arms, breasts and hips with his hands over her clothing.
Woman B 3. Indecent assault of a woman on an occasion between October and November 2010 at Bute House in Edinburgh by repeatedly seizing her by her wrists and repeatedly pulling her towards him and attempting to kiss her.
Woman C 4. Sexual assault of a woman in a car travelling between Holyrood Road and Waverley Station in Edinburgh on an occasion in February 2011 by touching her leg with his hand over her clothing.
Woman D 5. Sexual assault of a woman on various occasions between May 2011 and June 2013 at Bute House, at the Scottish Parliament and elsewhere by touching her buttocks with his hands over her clothing, and touching and stroking her hair.
PREVIOUSLY DROPPED 6. Sexual assault of a woman on an occasion between November and December 2013 at Bute House by kissing her on the mouth.
Woman F 7. Intent to rape of the same woman on an occasion in December 2013 at Bute House by causing her to sit on a bed, lie on top of her, make sexual remarks to her, touch her buttocks, thighs and breasts over her clothing with his hands, repeatedly kiss her face, struggle with her and pull up her dress.
Woman F 8. Sexual assault of a woman on an occasion in March 2012 at Ubiquitous Chip, a restaurant in Ashton Lane, Glasgow, by touching her buttocks with his hand over her clothing.
Woman F is one of two women whose complaints about Salmond prompted the original Scottish government inquiry back in early 2018
Woman F did not want to go to the police.
Woman F, the charge of sexual assault with intent to rape. Alex Salmond says the two had a “sleepy cuddle” on his bed after drinking Chinese liquor. He says “it shouldn’t have happened”, but says it was a cuddle and there was “no struggle whatsoever”. Jackson notes this is a charge of sexual assault with intent to rape. “It’s not true” says Alex Salmond. “Not in the slightest. I’ve never attempted to have non-consensual sexual relations with anyone in my entire life.”
Woman G 9. Sexual assault of the same woman on an occasion in April 2014 at Bute House by placing his arm around her, making sexual remarks to her and attempting to kiss her.
Woman G 10. Sexual assault of a woman on an occasion in May 2014 at Bute House by placing his arm around her body, placing his hand under her clothing and underwear and touching her breast, repeatedly kissing her on the face and neck and stroking her leg with his hand.
Woman H 11. Attempted rape of the same woman on an occasion in June 2014 at Bute House by lifting her legs and placing them over his legs, repeatedly kissing her on the face and neck, placing his hand inside her upper clothing and touching her breast over her underwear, repeatedly blocking her path, pinning her against a wall, removing his clothing and underwear, pushing her on to a bed, kneeling over her, pinning her to the bed by her shoulder, lying naked on top of her and then trying to rape her.
Woman H 12. Sexual assault of a woman on an occasion in September 2014 at Bute House by seizing her by her shoulders, repeatedly kissing her on the face, attempting to kiss her on the lips, and touching her leg and face with his hand.
Gordon Jackson is taking court through Alex Salmond’s diary and calendar for the month of one of the charges involving Woman H – defence has lodged a special defence of alibi on this charge. After running through a series of dates, Jackson says from the diary and calendar, is there any time that month that Woman H could have been at Bute House with Alex Salmond? “No there’s not”, he says. On to the attempted rape charge; Alex Salmond says he was “never” involved in anything like this with Woman H. He says he remembers the dinner with a celebrity she says she was at and says it’s “not possible” Woman H was there. He says he remembers the dinner and “she wasn’t there”.
m. Jackson says Alex Salmond’s position couldn’t be simpler – the allegation is “just a lie”. “Yes, that’s correct,” he says. He says Woman F was annoyed that he hadn’t backed her in a personal political project. Defence concludes questioning of Alex Salmond.”
“Court back in open session. Jackson asks Alex Salmond about Woman H; he denies there was sexual contact on either of the occasions listed in the charges, but says there was a “consensual sexual encounter” on another occasion. Alex Salmond says there was a “consensual sexual liaison [with woman H] in the bedroom which did not involve full undress of either of us”, and says “we parted good friends with no damage done”. He says this was on a date prior to those in the two charges which he denies happened.
Woman J 13. Sexual assault of a woman on an occasion in November 2014 at Stirling Castle by touching her buttock with his hand over her clothing.
Woman J – the “zombie impression” claim – Alex Salmond says this didn’t happen; he says the only physical contact he had with Woman J was to tap her on the nose before he went off to bed, leaving her working on his computer. He says “nothing improper” happened.
Woman K 14.
Woman K is one of two women whose complaints about Salmond prompted the original Scottish government inquiry back in early 2018
Woman K did not want to go to the police.
Woman K, who says Alex Salmond touched her bottom as they had their photo taken – he says “it didn’t happen, I didn’t grab her bottom.”
Big Jock @ 8:15 pm
“The English moving to Scotland…”
Settler occupation is the third key dimension of colonialism, after political control and economic exploitation.
Inflows of approx 50,000 per annum soon mount up – i.e. 1 million every 20 years or so. This is a large sustained change in Scotland’s relatively modest population. Numbers appear to have accelerated post devolution and again post brexit vote, also promoted by UK Gov in various ways; no doubt to help limit the Yes vote.
Demographics is a major determinant of Scottish independence. The UK Gov know this, the SNP seem oblivious.
Tell that to those insisting he’s still ‘guilty’ robbo, the atl is precisely on the very subject of how the FM is in fact insinuating Alex is somehow still guilty post trial:
“The behaviour complained of was found by a jury not to constitute criminal conduct and Alex Salmond is innocent of criminality, but that doesn’t mean the behaviour complained of didn’t happen and I think it’s important that we don’t lose sight of that.”
Dare you tell Stu to stop his insane ramblings about the trial robbo 😉
Alf Baird
This recently happened in the 1980’s when property prices soared in england and many sold up and came to Scotland where property at the time was cheap to them and businesses. THAT IS A FACT. IT ALSO IS A FACT THAT THE english living in Scotland voted against Indy.
Give me pelters for speaking the truth.
Derek M Morison says:
No,Garavelli is referring to Women F&K as the 2 women who made formal complaints via the SG procedure the Holyrood Committee is currently investigating. We have heard in Committee evidence that the complaints were passed to the police by SG against the wishes of the 2 women themselves.
Ruby replies
Thanks for all the info Derek. Much appreciated.
Why would woman F not want to go to the police?
What could an HR Dept do vis a vis the charge of sexual assault with intent to rape?
Has there been anything new re the Tory Westminster MP charged with rape?
If I remember correctly when it was reported to Westminster complaints dept? the person was told it was a police matter and they should go to the police.
Would that not have been the sensible thing for Holyrood to do?
K1 says:
27 February, 2021 at 10:00 pm
Tell that to those insisting he’s still ‘guilty’ robbo,
———
Not on here there isn’t, until today weirdly and they’re sent packing, which has already happened today.
Scotland, rid yourself of this woke, EU-loving loon who is questioning the outcome of a trial by jury.
Salmond was absolutely brilliant on Friday. He keeps on going up in my estimation.
If you must leave the UK, make sure Capt’n Alex is at the helm, not this angry, insecure First Minister who is hiding behind ‘wimmins’ right to anonminity.
K1
“……the FM is in fact insinuating Alex is somehow still guilty post trial”
———-
Actually, Ms Sturgeon did not “insinuate” that Alex Salmond is “still guilty”. She said:
“The behaviour complained of was found by a jury not to constitute criminal conduct and Alex Salmond is innocent of criminality, but that doesn’t mean the behaviour complained of didn’t happen…”
In other words she says while the jury found Alex did not commit any criminal offence but that does not mean he didn’t commit the criminal offences.
Putting aside the contradiction in her statement, she is very clearly stating that the jury verdicts are totally unsafe and have not found him “not guilty”.
Ruby “Has there been anything new re the Tory Westminster MP charged with rape?” He was arrested & questioned but never charged.
link to bbc.co.uk
Rape investigation into Tory MP dropped by police
Police have dropped their investigation into a Conservative MP and former minister who was accused of rape.
The MP, who has not been named, was arrested on 1 August and later released on bail.
This followed the Metropolitan Police receiving allegations the previous day of sexual offences and assault relating to four separate incidents at addresses in London, including Westminster.
But the Met said the case had not met “the evidential test”.
A spokeswoman said “no further action” would be taken, following a “thorough investigation”, adding: “The complainant has been made aware of the decision.”
Tory MP accused of rape will not attend Parliament
The MP, in his 50s, did not return to the House of Commons after the parliamentary recess ended on 1 September.
The Conservative Party faced calls to suspend him, but Chief Whip Mark Spencer said it was for the police to investigate.
Derek M Morison says:
“We have heard in Committee evidence that the complaints were passed to the police by the SG against the wishes of the two women themselves.”
Very good point Derek. That is what is commonly known as grassing. They did so because they wanted to grass up (fit up) Alex Salmond.
“It means that it was beyond reasonable doubt that there was any substance to the allegations.”
I just wanted to elaborate on my comment above. In other words, it cannot be doubted that the accusations were baseless. That is why Nicola Sturgeon remains in contempt.
Captain Yossarian says:
“Whistle-blowers are hanged and their bodies dissected and hung from lamp-posts on the Royal Mile. That’s what happens in Scotland.”
Very true Captain Yossarian. That’s what happens in Scotland when Nicola Sturgeon is allowed to act as judge, jury and executioner. She’s getting away with murder.
Hi K1
Where have ye been hiding ?
Hope yer well :-). ( remember you’re the one who taught me how to do 🙂 )
Good tae see ye post .. 🙂
Alastair Galloway – you are talking utter nonsense. Wings is 100% correct. The job of the the jury is to decide questions of fact. The job of the judge, questions of law. That is the baseline of the entire justice system, both civil and criminal. The burden of proof you refer to is subsidiary to how proof is permitted by law to be established and by whom it may be assessed.
The jury’s decision must be accepted by the world at large as definitive of whether the accused committed the acts the law defines as criminal. Deciding whether they took place involves an inference from the factual evidence presented in relation to an abstract concept (a criminal act).
The law of evidence forms the basis on which inferences of fact can and should reasonably be made. It provides boundaries for framing questions of what it is possible to know. Short of a radical scepticism about reality in any form, jury decisions as to the facts, made in a legitimate legal system (the question of legitimacy being put aside for another day), must be accepted as truth (insofar as we can ever know it), when made within a framework of rules generally accepted and consented to. To think otherwise is to reject the legal order and to embrace not so much anarchy as stupidity.
Ruby says:
27 February, 2021 at 10:11 pm
What could an HR Dept do vis a vis the charge of sexual assault with intent to rape?
Indeed. Then again what could an HR Dept. do about ANY issues involving a FORMER-employee? Line Manager or HR do of course have a duty of care to employees. They can offer a listening-ear or counselling or welfare support or sign-posting to others who can (including the police?).
For serious workplace issues a formal procedure is only necessary because the outcome could involve disciplinary action against another employee? In the case of a former-employee the employer has no jurisdiction so I can’t see the point of it? I would love to know what the SG saw as potential outcomes of such a procedure? What understanding did the women themselves have in terms of outcomes? Offending employees can be sacked or moved to a different dept. or cautioned or just have a manager give them some informal advice? But what satisfaction could these women hope for or expect in the case of someone who no longer works there? Did nobody ask: I don’t see the point of this procedure since you have no jurisdiction to do anything about it?
Rikali – yir gibberin’ Braille!
“In other words she says while the jury found Alex did not commit any criminal offence but that does not mean he didn’t commit the criminal offences.”
AS WAS ACQUITTED OF ALL CHARGES!!! NO CRIMINALITY!
Apply for retraining. You’re hopeless – and your comment is, possibly, LIBEL.
Hashtag I do not stand with Nicola.Obviously.
We may need this after our posting to this web site.
link to offshore-protection.com
Or alternatily the Murrells may have already used it.
What a shower of bastards the work at the Sun.
They are rerunning Alex Salmond determined to turn
innocent into guilty.
One story goes on about an employee who had her arse felt
whenever she walk with Mr Salmond.
Aye right? No one every saw it happen over a period of years
and it never occurred to her to walk behind him, well clear of him, I’ll
catch up with you or do not touch or you’ll get belted and reported???
The gutter rag News of the World still crawls into the sewer via its Sister paper
the Sun. Boobs, Bingo, Bonking and blatant bull shit- with adverts.
Well, I sat through 6 hours of the most important television I’ve seen for a very long time, and watched a masterclass in truth and dignity.
I had earlier watched Nicola Sturgeon breach the Ministerial Code besmirshing a person who makes her look like a fish wife.
Mr Salmond was prosecuted lawfully after a police investigation. At no time was Mr Salmond anything other than an innocent man. He was accused of serious crimes and tried in the courts of Scotland on the basis that he was innocent until found guilty. He was cleared of all charges. At no time was he anything other than innocent of all charges.
This is an unassailable fact.
The ministerial code states ‘the Ministerial Code should be read against the background of the overarching duty on Ministers to comply with the law’.
Further, it states ‘Ministers must ensure that no conflict arise, or appears to arise, between their public duties and their private interests’.
Discussing the court case WITH JOURNALISTS, in public, was outwith the scope of her duty as First Minister. Stating that ‘the behavior complained of was found by a jury not to constitute criminal conduct and Alex Salmond is innocent of criminality, but that doesn’t mean that the behaviour they complained of didn’t happen and I think it’s important we don’t lose sight of that’.
Obviously the last few words was the major breach, but as it was a personal opinion is a breach, that it was stated without the counter facts that attempted rape can, in no court of law, be anything other than a criminal act, an act the prosecution did not proved happened. An obvious breach. To even discuss her opinion with people who will then publish her words, her personal opinion – well that was sheer stupidity – as well as a breach of the Ministerial Code.
One of the points covered in the questioning was harassment, and specifically sexual harrassment.
Another point raised was motive.
Well, having followed this for months, thanks to Stu, and watched and listened to every word on Friday, no one detailed how and when two sexual harassment charges, requiring a Scottish Government enquiry, became criminal charges for sexual assault for attempted rape, indecent assault and sexual assault. Or why.
Were the police immediately called about these alleged serious crimes, or were these women instructed to report these alleged serious crimes at the time these very serious criminal accusations were made?
Or did, somehow, two accusations of alleged harassment – sexual but not criminal – and therefore simply under the remit of work policies, just over time become alleged crimes? Where is the wording that separates sexual harassment and sexual assault, and where is the distinction between when sexual harassment is simply a workplace matter and when it is a crime. Surely there has to be a distinction, as it would not be the place of any exployer, even if that employer is the Scottish Government, to investigate crimes.
Had simply accusations of sexual assault been made in the first place, surely this would have been a matter for the accusers, the police and Mr Salmond. But this did not happen, instead the Scottish Government cobbled a policy in a few weeks to bring a private citizen under the rules of a previous workplace, and created civil proceedings against him. What did the Scottish Government hope to achieve? And when, and on whose instructions, were the police involved, and when did workplace harassment turn into 14 criminal charges?
Answer those questions – and surely the remit of the committee should be simply to answer those questions, and you might have the motive.
Because there certainly was a motive. And this whole debacle took many months, every minute of it under the First Minister’s watch.
On current demographics, I guess we find out later this year (or maybe next year), as this is a Census year, and I seem to recall that some data gets published fairly soon afterwards. That should be interesting once published.
I’m not convinced by the “settler” argument; folks from rUK amounted to around 10% of the population in 2011, yet 18% identified as Scottish and British, I’d suggest that group is more of a factor.
* We may as well consider them all from England, despite the details, from: link to scotlandscensus.gov.uk
The data explorer facility also shows folks identifying as:
2% – English only
2% – Scottish and other
2% – other combinations of UK only
4% – other only
0.3% – other and at least one UK identity
Brian Doonthetoon at 10.33
I think you might have misconstrued Rikali’s post at 10.21.
Rikali is upgrading Sturgeon’s comment from “insinuation” to “statement” and calling her out on it.
Bob Mack says:
27 February, 2021 at 3:07 pm
@Adam,
Bob,
I’ve redacted your most of your posting in the best SNP traditions.
What if we told the jury.nope to go out and decide again and come back with the right verdict.
Do you believe in IndyRef2? Asking for a Unionist friend.
Ruby @ 9.54pm
[…]
Your list goes slightly wrong — I have tried to amend it…
6. Removing woman’s shoe and trying to kiss her foot – Woman E — charge withdrawn by the Crown on Day 6 of the trial — AS formally acquitted by Lady Dorian
7. Woman F –Sexual assault of a woman on an occasion between November and December 2013 at Bute House by kissing her on the mouth.
Woman F 8. Intent to rape of the same woman on an occasion in December 2013 at Bute House by causing her to sit on a bed, lie on top of her, make sexual remarks to her, touch her buttocks, thighs and breasts over her clothing with his hands, repeatedly kiss her face, struggle with her and pull up her dress.
Woman F is one of two women whose complaints about Salmond prompted the original Scottish government inquiry back in early 2018
Woman F did not want to go to the police.
Woman F, the charge of sexual assault with intent to rape. Alex Salmond says the two had a “sleepy cuddle” on his bed after drinking Chinese liquor. He says “it shouldn’t have happened”, but says it was a cuddle and there was “no struggle whatsoever”. Jackson notes this is a charge of sexual assault with intent to rape. “It’s not true” says Alex Salmond. “Not in the slightest. I’ve never attempted to have non-consensual sexual relations with anyone in my entire life.”
Woman G 9. Sexual assault of a woman on an occasion in March 2012 at Ubiquitous Chip, a restaurant in Ashton Lane, Glasgow, by touching her buttocks with his hand over her clothing.
Woman G 10. Sexual assault of the same woman on an occasion in April 2014 at Bute House by placing his arm around her, making sexual remarks to her and attempting to kiss her.
Woman H 11. Sexual assault of a woman on an occasion in May 2014 at Bute House by placing his arm around her body, placing his hand under her clothing and underwear and touching her breast, repeatedly kissing her on the face and neck and stroking her leg with his hand.
Woman H 12. Attempted rape of the same woman on an occasion in June 2014 at Bute House by lifting her legs and placing them over his legs, repeatedly kissing her on the face and neck, placing his hand inside her upper clothing and touching her breast over her underwear, repeatedly blocking her path, pinning her against a wall, removing his clothing and underwear, pushing her on to a bed, kneeling over her, pinning her to the bed by her shoulder, lying naked on top of her and then trying to rape her.
Gordon Jackson is taking court through Alex Salmond’s diary and calendar for the month of one of the charges involving Woman H – defence has lodged a special defence of alibi on this charge. After running through a series of dates, Jackson says from the diary and calendar, is there any time that month that Woman H could have been at Bute House with Alex Salmond? “No there’s not”, he says. On to the attempted rape charge; Alex Salmond says he was “never” involved in anything like this with Woman H. He says he remembers the dinner with a celebrity [REBUS] she says she was at and says it’s “not possible” Woman H was there. He says he remembers the dinner and “she wasn’t there”.
m. Jackson says Alex Salmond’s position couldn’t be simpler – the allegation is “just a lie”. “Yes, that’s correct,” he says. He says Woman F was annoyed that he hadn’t backed her in a personal political project. Defence concludes questioning of Alex Salmond.”
“Court back in open session. Jackson asks Alex Salmond about Woman H; he denies there was sexual contact on either of the occasions listed in the charges, but says there was a “consensual sexual encounter” on another occasion. Alex Salmond says there was a “consensual sexual liaison [with woman H] in the bedroom which did not involve full undress of either of us”, and says “we parted good friends with no damage done”. He says this was on a date prior to those in the two charges which he denies happened.
Woman J 13. Sexual assault of a woman on an occasion in September 2014 at Bute House by seizing her by her shoulders, repeatedly kissing her on the face, attempting to kiss her on the lips, and touching her leg and face with his hand.
Woman J – the “zombie impression” claim – Alex Salmond says this didn’t happen; he says the only physical contact he had with Woman J was to tap her on the nose before he went off to bed, leaving her working on his computer. He says “nothing improper” happened.
Woman K 14. Sexual assault of a woman on an occasion in November 2014 at Stirling Castle by touching her buttock with his hand over her clothing.
Woman K is one of two women whose complaints about Salmond prompted the original Scottish government inquiry back in early 2018
Woman K did not want to go to the police.
Woman K, who says Alex Salmond touched her bottom as they had their photo taken – he says “it didn’t happen, I didn’t grab her bottom.”
It has just dawned on me that Sturgeon’s interchangeability of the words ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ are what led her to believe that she could accuse Mr Salmond as she did and that the jury would believe her. Gender and sex are NOT interchangeable and Nicola Sturgeon sought to make contact between people of the opposite gender into sexual acts when in fact there was no sexual intent on Mr Salmond’s part.
Thanks Brian, saved me the bother…incoherent gibberish, talk about cognitive dissonance and yes potentially contempt of court.
Liz 🙂 y’know how it goes Liz, a break’s always healthy to recoup wan’s energies;-)
Republicofscotland 7:49
Respect your opinion.
My opinion is HMQ has done a pretty good job for all of the UK as HoS for the almost 70 years. I also gather that she is very fond of all of the UK. Therefore, my personal hope, out of politeness, is that Indy doesnt happen while she reigns.
But, I’m a democrat; Scotland’s call.
Alf Baird 7:52
Fair enough. Valid points. I lived in Morayshire for seven years but not now. If I still did I would not vote in an IndyRef, even if entitled, cause I’m not a Scot.
But for IndyRaf purposes, who is?
You imply the English in Scotland voted in 14 and shouldnt have been allowed. Dont disagree. But, by that logic, “only Scots should vote”, shouldn’t all Scots (UK citizens claiming to be Scots), anywhere in the world (including rest of UK) be eligible to vote?
Not impossible to organise… Not my nightmare…
Alf Baird.
I agree it wouldn’t take much immigration from the south to change the demographic.
JB says:
27 February, 2021 at 10:46 pm
On current demographics, I guess we find out later this year (or maybe next year), as this is a Census year
—
Census in Scotland is next year, not this.
I wish folk who know nothing would stop pretending to know everything then posting inane drivel.
And to those of you who seem to be actively engaged in trying to get this blog shut down by re-running the HMA v Alex Salmond case, we see you.
Hi crazycat at 10:53 pm.
You typed,
“I think you might have misconstrued Rikali’s post at 10.21.
Rikali is upgrading Sturgeon’s comment from “insinuation” to “statement” and calling her out on it.”
That’s not how I read the last sentence of Rikali’s comment.
“Putting aside the contradiction in her statement, she is very clearly stating that the jury verdicts are totally unsafe and have not found him “not guilty”.”
Maybe Rikali could clarify? If I have misunderstood, I’ll apologise in advance, coz it’s getting late.
Just reread Rikali’s comment again. OK, maybe I got it wrong. Sorry.
Derek M Morison says:
Did nobody ask: I don’t see the point of this procedure since you have no jurisdiction to do anything about it?
Ruby replies
Agreed!
In Westminster there is always a written transcript of all the committee meetings. I don’t think this is the case in Holyrood.
If there were I would be checking the to find out what was said re procedures for former ministers. It was mentioned that there was something currently being discussed in parliament & that it was winning approval.
Alex Salmond was questioned at length whether he thought it was a good/bad idea to include former ministers.
It’s not so easy to find things on a six hour video.
Perhaps someone else will know what I’m talking about
Ruby says:
27 February, 2021 at 11:16 pm
In Westminster there is always a written transcript of all the committee meetings. I don’t think this is the case in Holyrood.
—
FFS. The Official Record is posted on Scottish Parliament website.
@ruby 9.54 – your list has gone awry. Woman G is the ubiquitous chip incident.
Right I see what crazycat is getting at, apologies as I’ve misunderstood you Rikali’s.
‘Putting aside the contradiction in her statement, she is very clearly stating that the jury verdicts are totally unsafe and have not found him “not guilty”.’
Yes, to me she is still insinuating guilt, because she is not stating it outright, her contradiction gives her cover for not stating it outright.
Her logic is flawed, if she’s stating he is innocent of criminality, that means he’s not guilty of any of the charges and ‘therefore the behaviour that led to those charges were/are false’ But…she’s not saying that, she’s saying the opposite of that by stating that he is innocent of criminality, meaning he’s not guilty of any of the charges…but… ‘the behaviour that led to those charges are still true’.> And that’s what she want people to not lose sight of.
Yes, she’s in contempt. imo
“The behaviour complained of was found by a jury not to constitute criminal conduct and Alex Salmond is innocent of criminality, but that doesn’t mean the behaviour complained of didn’t happen and I think it’s important that we don’t lose sight of that.”
Effigy @ 10.42
That British controlled rag are probably not satisfied that he didn’t go into full revenge mode on Nicola Sturgeon and are trying to goad him into to it … ye know what they’re like Effigy…
They think the whole world runs on Westminster oneupmanship and we are all trying to be just like them…
Big mistake…
I think we are now back on Alex Salmonds time table and not a , nudge Westminster gently along project…
I’m so relieved that in all of the mire he seems to be mindful of Scotland’s position too.
I was worried that he’d be focused on clearing his name beyond the jury, and I’d not have blamed him a bit fur it either.
But he didn’t seem to rise to that bait thankfully .
So….
Hopefully, truth will out remains the road the Civic Scotland are on …and we … the Yes campaign can leave the parts we cannot influence to play out ( luckily we’ve the Rev on watch ) and adjust our thinking accordingly.
Now we need to start thinking where we go from here….
Take the successful and jettison the spent ….. Now we need to learn from our mistakes…
Which everyone says and rarely elaborates on .
So I’ll do it now.
Turn to the Yes movement, strengthen it and put it beyond the politicians.
Are we Yes voters bigger than the Party’s,the Churches and the Unions?
I’d say that we are, and we should now start flexing that potential.
What are we waiting for ?
We’re done with the politicians they’ve had years, Now we need to depend on ourselves .
Because politicians will politic but they always, always listen to groups who claim to speak for a very lot of members…… id like to know what makes them think Yes doesn’t represent a very lot of people…did they no see those marches….and exactly what is it that make them think they can sideline that number of Scots???
Answer that and we’ve a way forwards…
I’m not about to wait decades till the political stars aligned according to some politicians.
I want Indy NOW and if we organise as a movement and not a party, this will be our time and Indy we shall have…
Brian Doonthetoon at 11.08
Something I feel sure we can agree on is that Rikali’s comment could have been expressed in more straightforward language 🙂
Hi K1.
I misunderstood Rikali’s comment too.
It WAS a tad ambiguous.
Och, onnyhoo, tomorrow is another day. I’m off for a Chinese nosebag.
‘I wish folk who know nothing would stop pretending to know everything then posting inane drivel.
And to those of you who seem to be actively engaged in trying to get this blog shut down by re-running the HMA v Alex Salmond case, we see you.’
It’s my understanding that the owner of this blog decides whether what we discuss btl is threatening to his blog, not you. So kindly take a break and stop attempting to moderate what’s being discussed on here, if Stu reckons any of us are in breach in any way whatsoever in terms of the current discussions, he’d be the first to come btl line and tell us, I don’t recall you being given a sheriffs badge?
“HMQ has done a pretty good job”
+
“I’m a democrat”
=
Special needs.
“Thumbs up”, crazycat.
The emoji handling on this site is K®@p.
8=)
Enjoy Brian, we all make misinterpretations from time to time, no biggie, I hope the commenter takes our apologies in good faith, enjoy yer hay 😉
K1 @ 10.57
LOL …. sharp as ever I see 🙂
Well .. Wan hopes Wan is Mach fit fur here , let me tell ya 🙂
And this Wan also hopes you and yours are well my friend xxx
Scott – yeah I did just learn that it had been delayed until next year in Scotland while chasing something related.
I wonder how many people will be unaccounted for, as they may be in England/Wales/NI on Census day next year, or is there a plan to deal with that? Possibly that is just considered to be an insignificant number.
Similarly some folk could be in Scotland on March 21st who normally live elsewhere. I guess that is expected to be a small number of people who fit in one of the exception categories (e.g. extended households / support bubbles on either side of the border).
There is no other explanation that makes any sense, she is the love child of Walter Mitty and a woman that cannot be named for legal reasons
One really has to wonder why the unionists are not making hay with nicola rejecting the verdict of the jury and the rulings of the judge.
Easy question for sarwar, is it acceptable for the first minister to ignore a verdict and continue victimising a citizen.
I hope the alphabet women are watching this because nicola will not hesitate to turn on them. When it blows up she will say but they told me!! I just listened to their complaints
Look out ladies she will drop you in the brown stuff in an instant
😉 Liz
All good this end, wan needs to get tae ma kip noo, hope all’s well wi you and yours too Liz 🙂
K1
I would buy you a double anytime
Ruby @ 11.16pm says
Alex Salmond was questioned at length whether he thought it was a good/bad idea to include former ministers.
I suspect they were trying to provoke AS about whether he thought the policy had been dreamt up just to address issues involving himself? But he repeatedly stated his policy of only giving testimony on things he had documentary evidence to back up so he wasn’t to be drawn on that point.
He restricted any allegations of ‘conspiracy’ to later interference in the police inquiry with the intent of sisting the JR.
It’s not for AS to either justify or challenge the detailed provisions of the procedure. Whether its designed purpose was well-intentioned and reasonable is beside the point. It was rushed through, poorly drafted and incompetently applied in contravention of it own provisions. The Court of Session found the SG procedure and its application was ‘unlawful’. And further that the SG’s botched defense of the process in the CofS was deserving of punitive costs against them.
It’s up to the SG to explain to Committee why it all went wrong and cost the taxpayer £600k not AS.
No fan of Sturgeon, but this article isn’t correct.
Imagine a scenario where the jury is 50% sure someone is guilty of assault. Clearly this isn’t “beyond reasonable doubt”, so the accused would be found not guilty. However this doesn’t mean the accused definitely didn’t carry out the assault, so it would be reasonable to make the statement that it doesn’t mean the behaviour didn’t happen.
For Salmond, I’m confident that he was innocent and the behaviour didn’t happen. But as a general statement, it’s reasonable.
Language, Language, Language.
LMAO
Lets Make An Otavva rima
K1
We were at, we were at… the Ubiquitous Chip
When his hand went lower, lower than my hip
You can call me anything A, B or C
But the Jury – they call me, they call me G
We were at, we were at… the Ubiqitous Chip
I say his hand went lower, lower than my hip,
The Jury listened – said – your talking shit
We were at, we were at, the Ubiquitous Chip
We were at, we were at, the Ubiquitous Chip,
I was on the stairwell, it was a tight fit
I say he groped me, that’s what I say
He says no lass – you wir jist in the way
We were at, we were at, the Ubiquitous Chip
My arse blocked the stairwell, people coudnae get past
Well past tea time, they were fainting from the Fast.
They couldnae get their grub , so they gave my arse a shove.
We were at, we were at, the Ubiquitous Chip
I say he groped me, but it wiznae enough
The Jury said ‘ no love, you just got a shove’
You were at, you were at, the Ubiquitous Chip
His tea wiz on the table, n yir arse wiz in the the way,
…
any way, time for bed.
FOA Derek M Morison
link to scottishparliament.tv
Go to
13:44:36
Andy Whiteman says next week we will reach stage 3
of the Scottish Parliamentary Standards (Sexual Harassment & Complains Process bill, which allows
for historical behaviour by MSPs who behaved badly towards their staff, going back to 1999.
More at 13:54:58 from Alisdair Allan.
Menstruator says:
27 February, 2021 at 11:23 pm
@ruby 9.54 – your list has gone awry. Woman G is the ubiquitous chip incident.
Ruby replies
Thanks I’ll look into that.
Scott says:
FFS. The Official Record is posted on Scottish Parliament website.
Ruby replies
FFS Scott could you not have told me earlier before I went trawling through the video.
FFS x 2 could you not have posted a link to the transcript?
Waiting for my Chinese to cook.
Sam says at 11:52 pm.
You professed,
“No fan of Sturgeon, but this article isn’t correct.
Imagine a scenario where the jury is 50% sure someone is guilty of assault. Clearly this isn’t “beyond reasonable doubt”, so the accused would be found not guilty. However this doesn’t mean the accused definitely didn’t carry out the assault, so it would be reasonable to make the statement that it doesn’t mean the behaviour didn’t happen.”
THE JURY ACQUITTED HIM!
Thus each allegation didn’t happen!
What do find so hard to understand?
Ruby says:
28 February, 2021 at 12:01 am
FFS Scott could you not have told me earlier before I went trawling through the video.
FFS x 2 could you not have posted a link to the transcript?
—
Why would I post a link? I was only correcting your ignorance.
Not to mention that there is an odd number of jurors so it could never be 50/50
alas as my family and friends know, I am one of those nipple people, no, not little people, nipple people, that don’t give a monkeys fart or even a great silver backs fart what anybody thinks of them
If you don’t like me feck you, what do I care what you like, if you like me feck you, what do I care what the feck you like
I am loved for who i am, my friends know the person I am
Ok, I admit it. I have been to the shops for a bottle of cabernet sauvignon ( chile wine ) and its nearly finished, but it will be finished on the next swally
But I have one thing to say…….
If you ever take me seriously, I will never talk to you again
All my love to you all
David of Caledonia
Sam says:
27 February, 2021 at 11:52 pm
No fan of Sturgeon, but this article isn’t correct.
It’s not whether they happened with some of them – it’s whether they were of a sexual nature. Some have lied altogether and some have related times they say they remember Mr Salmond touching them and effectively accused him of ‘groping’ them. The accusation is that he was sexually attacking the people and it’s quite clear what the jury thought about it. Sturgeon et al were trying to replace with ‘sex’ with ‘gender’ in the minds of the jury – it didn’t work. He is (was) a tactile person – with everybody male and female
It’s quite ironic given the policies they’re trying to get through Holyrood at the moment.
K1 says………………. K1 says…….. welcome welcom,welcome David of caledonia says welcome
I could do with a good grope, what the feck is wrong with a good feel, if you want a good grope at my unmentionables, then you have to pay, 30 bob should cover it lol
Awe Fur Fuck Sake!!!
They’re Crawlin Oot The Wid Wurk Ra Night.
The Flat Earthers.
The Denyers.
The,,,
“I LUV NIKLA” MOB HAVE TURNED UP.
.
Derek M Morrison,
PLEASE STOP DISCUSSING THE ALPHABET WOMEN ON HERE.
This is not my website it is of course Stuarts and obviously his call.
But for Heaven’s sake those GENUINE Wingers know by now what a corrupt leadership the SNP are.
In fact Alex Salmond’s main headline yesterday was that Scotland’s political leadership, our civil service leadership and Crown Office leadership had FAILED.
I am loathe to state this as it should be obvious given what has happened to Alex Salmond and what IS currently happening to Craig Murray.
NICOLA STURGEON RANTED AD HOMINEM AGAINST STUART CAMPBELL AND THIS WEBSITE, REPEATEDLY BY IT’S NAME, WINGS OVER SCOTLAND, WHEN SHE ZOOMED INTO THE LAST SNP NEC MEETING.
Have you any idea the powers that the current First Minister of Scotland has? Do you not realise the gravitas of what it means when the Dreghorn Disaster stomps her feet, loses her temper and wants to get rid of someone? Have you not seen what happened to Alex Salmond?
Less known is RIGHT NOW she has her grubby fingerprints on EVERY LEVER OF POWER AVAILABLE TO HER TO CLOSE DOWN WINGS OVER SCOTLAND.
Douglas, I don’t know if you have just been genuinely misguided or naive, or if you are one of the many NEW BTL members who are clearly PLANTING EXCUSES ON BTL TO HAVE STUART CAMPBELL IN THE LEGAL HORSE SHIT AGAIN.
EITHER WAY, FOR FUCK SAKE PLEASE STOP BEING STUPID.
Yes we should be able to discuss the demerits of the gerrymandered systems, but the temporary fake First Minister’s acolytes favourite MO is to PLANT and/or FIT-UP anyone the McWoke lobby sees as a threat.
At this precise moment in time, Wings Over Scotland is the MOST important political website in Scotland.
It is no overstatement to write that the veracity and integrity of our political and legal institutions may live or die by the open source articles on this website.
Wingers PLEASE watch out for the slimey slithering Sturgeonite newbies who will repeatedly pop up onto this site with instructions from der Sturgeonfuhrer Bunker in Dreghorn to troll or much worse, are here on their own Trumpian style mission to plant actionable crap.
Thank you.
Sorry for the rant Stuart. As you know there is stuff going on in the background far away from this site and it really is time to consider a safety backup Wings website in a country that safely hosts websites with integrity and tells Banana Dictators from tinpot regimes to fuck off when they try to take down websites that they don’t like.
As Garrion says, Alex Salmond is playing 3D chess and Nicola is throwing monkey crap about.
Scotland needs to decide whether we live in a world where people have the freedom and intellect to play chess, or whether Scotland is to become a zoo with bananas and monkeys.
@Sam
That’s the thing about general statements, they’re like all other general statements, none of them can claim any particular veracity.
Authority might be attached, however, depending on who utters the particular statement. Like the First Minister of Scotland, for example.
Sam @ 11.52
“However this doesn’t mean the accused definitely didn’t carry out the assault, so it would be reasonable to make the statement that it doesn’t mean the behaviour didn’t happen.”
You could say that of anyone found guilty or otherwise in any trial ever, fuckwit.
Not sure why so many people need to be repeating all the accusations against Alex on this website tonight. Is it necessary?
However – Glad to hear two things:
a. that Jim Sillars has not been fobbed off and in fact has rebounded with an increased accusation against NS.
B. It seems the Committee has asked Levy and McRae for their documentation.
‘We’ve no seen the last of his blue bonnet and him yet!’
Hatuey and Sam @ 12.47
It’s the same thing as NS saying – ‘there’s no smoke without a fire’ which seems to be the attitude of a lot of people towards Alex.
Sadly the defence case was never (adequately) reported whilst the charges were widely published.
Al-Stuart
Well Said.
.
Ruby at 9.54 says…
“I’m compiling a list with all info re the different alphabet women to try and get it all straight in my mind.
I’ll keep adding as I find new info.”
Ruby, WHY are you re-running the Alex Salmond trial on this website? Buy yourself a pen and notepad. Get your enfeebled mind straight in your own home. Post contempt of court actionable ramblings on your own website.
Ruby, WHY are you doing this now?
Are you cranially challenged or just determined to put this website in harm’s way?
Are you one of these BTL newbie WoS wreckers that have been sent in, since St Nicola had her meltdown on Zoom at the most recent SNP NEC meeting?
Or are you just being plain stupid?
Please THINK about what you are doing?
For those who wonder why some folk get a bit prickly, consider the plight of Ambassador Craig Murray.
.
Thanks Meg.
It’s guid to hear some sensible folk still on Wings at daft-o-clock.
Meg thanks for the quote too.
Alex did say those immortal words that we’ve no seen the last o’ Bonnie Dundee nor his bunnets.
Truth be said, I’m hanging into those words from Alex and hoping to God he can find the strength and frankly faith in what’s left of our battered country to give it one final push.
If he were to sign up to one of the LIST parties along with Kenny MacAskill and Joanna Cherry, maybe with Craig Murray, that would stand a good chance of securing 15 to 20 POR INDY LIST MSPs and as Alex often said, we’d be able to hold some feet to the fire and secure IndyRef2.
Something interesting has occurred to me. The law was changed so that Alex Salmond could be charged retrospectively. However, it used to always be the case that either you resigned or faced charges. Now, even if the Gang of Four resign, then they will still face punishment. Trapped in their own trap. How very apt!
I just hope the police are taking note of all this and prepared to act as swiftly on actual evidence as they were on fabricated evidence.
However, whatever happens, one thing is abundantly clear. Nicola Sturgeon lives in an alternate reality from the truth.
PS Daisy, love your Ubiquitous Chip poem!
David of Caledonia at 11.45 pm
Dunno, but I must be on the same level of pishedness, but I found that comment hilarious without understandanding a word of it. All strength to you.
But mainly to your your later comment – I wish I could achieve that ‘I don’t give a fuck what you think’ on a permanent basis, because I hate the judgemental, holier than thou, attitude that so many people in society have; I want to not care about them or their false morality – I love the liberty it gives – that momentary freedom from constantly being judged by a society that has no right to judge. We are people, with variety of foibles and problems (that’s what makes society!) – no one else has the right to judge on perceived – and subjective – and often influenced by rancid neoliberal regimes – warped morals.
If we do well by ourselves and do well to others, we offer no harm – and we should not be judged on the values of others.
————–
Sam – give if a rest, I’m sick of this thread being chockablock with comments about the American judicial system – Scottish juries are on a majority only, picked at random, and have a minimum ODD NUMBER of jurors allowed to vote – there is NEVER 50-50. The decision is a majority decision, and that’s the final decision based on that.
There is no ‘doubt’ or any insinuation that they were ‘chosen’ – because they aren’t ‘chosen’ (because this isn’t an American system and your name is literally picked out of a hat) – to give any particular verdict. Random people giving a verdict as a majority. It’s about the fairest system you can have – BUT they can only make a decision based on the evidence presented, and people aren’t infallible.
BUT that isn’t what the article is about – the article is about Nicola Sturgeon lying – again – about what she said.
Whatever ‘doubt’ you or other people have, implying the verdict on AS was incorrect, you should bring it up with the courts – apparently they, at least, are still impartial – and present your NEW evidence that supports your claim that there was reasonable doubt.
I haven’t seen any reasonable doubt, or any new evidence. The behaviour DIDN’T happen, because the ‘behaviour’ was claimed to be criminal – and found not to be so. Anything else is not criminal and is none of our business – it’s private, personal – and not something to be casually gossiped about. Hearsay, and vicious rumour-mongering. Either present your evidence, and at least get your facts straight about the Scottish legal system, of stop insinuating wrong-doing.
Certainly, the verdict on AS has absolutely no bearing on whether or not NS has lied. So which part of this articles is ‘not correct’?
crazycat says:
27 February, 2021 at 11:37 pm
Brian Doonthetoon at 11.08
Something I feel sure we can agree on is that Rikali’s comment could have been expressed in more straightforward language.”
————-
I do apologise.
Yes, I was trying to paraphrase the First Minister’s statement to show she was clearly challenging the juries’ decision.
I seriously question the motives of those listing in detail the charges and detailed speculation about the alphabet women on this site. This serves no useful purpose and could present problems for the site . Could this possibly be the intention?
Geoff Aberdein evidence in Inquiry hands Sunday Times reports
link to archive.vn
Aye, Rikali.
She certainly was.
Nighty-night.
Fucks sake, just fancy that, eh, if only somebody like, say, Scotland’s most-read political blogger had warned them?
link to express.co.uk?
(Disclaimer: yes; I know it’s the bloody Express, but still…)
BTW: the Chinese pork with a couple of spring rolls, smothered with syrup, was well fine!
A Person says:
28 February, 2021 at 1:38 am
Fucks sake, just fancy that, eh, if only somebody like, say, Scotland’s most-read political blogger had warned them?
link to express.co.uk?
(Disclaimer: yes; I know it’s the bloody Express, but still…)
Here’s the Express article archived:
link to archive.vn
This may jar with some but if you are not a woman you will never really understand the ingrained fear of Male sexual violence.
I am in my 50s and I still wouldn’t walk home in unlit streets and my husband would still expect me to get a taxi home from a night out. This is just the way we live our lives. Of course I don’t think all men are a threat BUT some are. It has always been so. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know that and that is where the radar comes in. Sometimes you just know when you aren’t safe and sometimes you just know when to tell someone to get to f**k and hope they will back off.
I don’t think for a minute that a rainbow will protect me and being kind is a very very dangerous misunderstanding of a natural safety radar. I have always thought that the backlash will come when fathers (who remember when raging hormones dominated their youth) realise that mature adult males can get full access to their teenage daughters.
However, women are not some angelic creation. The saddest thing for me with the very clear stitch up of Alex Salmond is the immense damage to all women whether in public life or victims of sexual crime. A sham of a feminist or more accurately a female narcissist posing as a feminist has damaged every single woman who needs to keep that danger radar. She has also damaged every single man who now doesn’t know how they can interact with women in a natural fashion.
The political damage to the SNP is significant and I want Independence every waking moment but the social damage to us all is absolutely unforgivable.
The concerted effort that Alex Salmond alludes to was because of the weakness of the case and the complaints. Because the judicial review was flawed, unlawful and tainted with apparent bias and therefore failed to nail Alex the COPFS had to work hand in glove with the Scottish government to create a case of quantity over quality. Because each individuals case was so weak the prosecution needed as many complainers to suggest a pattern of behaviour ie Alex Salmond being a sexual predator. The case being so weak Alex Salmond was found not guilty on all charges by an independent jury of his pears and acquitted. Unfortunately the stigma remained tarnishing his reputation offering lines of continued attack from his enemies. Nicola Sturgeon hates the fact that he wasn’t jailed and silenced permanently as his appearance at the inquiry shows he is still a threat as he has all the evidence to prove the conspiracy and he has proven again that he is still the statesman. Her hatred and vindictiveness have made her behaviour irrational and will be her undoing.
Al-Stuart says:
28 February, 2021 at 1:03 am
Ruby, WHY are you re-running the Alex Salmond trial on this website? Buy yourself a pen and notepad. Get your enfeebled mind straight in your own home. Post contempt of court actionable ramblings on your own website.
Ruby, WHY are you doing this now?
Are you cranially challenged or just determined to put this website in harm’s way?
Are you one of these BTL newbie WoS wreckers that have been sent in, since St Nicola had her meltdown on Zoom at the most recent SNP NEC meeting?
Or are you just being plain stupid?
Ruby replies
I am not any of these things but one thing I am is sure that this is not the site for me.
I had forgotten so thanks for reminding me why I stopped posting on this site.
Ruby says:
28 February, 2021 at 2:23 am
Ruby replies
I am not any of these things but one thing I am is sure that this is not the site for me.
I had forgotten so thanks for reminding me why I stopped posting on this site.
—-
Try not to forget again, please
Eileen Carson @ 1.34
Thanks for that link Eileen …
As per Eileen Carson’s link from above, I’m going to post the entire Sunday Times article.
It is all over bar the greetin’:
‘New evidence that Nicola Sturgeon’s team leaked name of Alex Salmond accuser
Sunday February 28 2021, 12.01am GMT, The Sunday Times
Unpublished evidence lodged with an inquiry into the Alex Salmond affair has raised fresh concerns that the SNP leader, Nicola Sturgeon, misled parliament, in breach of the ministerial code.
It indicates that her team was aware of harassment complaints against her former boss and closest friend several weeks before she told parliament she became aware of them.
The material from Salmond’s former chief of staff, Geoff Aberdein, also supports claims made by the former first minister that Sturgeon’s administration leaked the identity of one of the women complaining about him — claims that Sturgeon rejected last week.
Labour has said that such an identification would represent an “extraordinary breach of confidentiality” and a “fundamental breakdown of trust”.
The Sunday Times has been given details of Aberdein’s evidence to the Scottish parliamentary committee investigating the SNP government’s unlawful handling of complaints against Salmond, who testified on Friday.
The disclosures increase the pressure on Sturgeon, who is due to appear before the inquiry on Wednesday. Knowingly misleading parliament is a breach of the ministerial code that should lead to resignation.
Sturgeon claimed on a number of occasions — including in evidence to parliament in 2019 — that she learnt of women’s complaints from Salmond himself, at a meeting in her Glasgow home on April 2, 2018.
Then, in an inquiry submission released last October, Sturgeon accepted she had met Aberdein about the matter in her office four days earlier, on March 29, 2018. She said she had “forgotten” about it, describing it as a “fleeting, opportunistic meeting”.
Aberdein’s evidence, which heaps pressure on Sturgeon, has been shared with members of the Holyrood inquiry committee but not published on legal grounds. It indicates Sturgeon’s team was aware of allegations at least as far back as early March, and that the identity of a complainant was passed to Aberdein, who then conveyed it to Salmond.
During his appearance at the inquiry on Friday, Salmond was asked whether he knew whether the name of a complainant was shared during a meeting with Aberdein, as a precursor to the meeting between Salmond and Sturgeon.
Salmond replied: “Yes,” saying he was told that by his former chief of staff, and that others knew it to be true. The committee is writing to Aberdein and others he spoke to at the time.
On Thursday, when pressed in parliament on whether the name of one of the women involved had been passed on, Sturgeon said: “To the very best of my knowledge, I do not think that happened.”
Labour MSP Jackie Baillie, a member of the inquiry committee, said: “In any other employment situation, if a complainant’s name was leaked, it would be a matter of gross misconduct. This would be a most extraordinary breach of confidentiality.”
The Scottish government was approached for comment. Aberdein did not comment.
SNP sources predict Leslie Evans, the head of Scotland’s civil service, will be ousted over her role in the affair. The SNP chief executive, Peter Murrell, who is also Sturgeon’s husband, and her chief of staff, Liz Lloyd, are also tipped to move.’
link to archive.vn
Test
Trying this again, went into moderation, perhaps accidentally.
[EDITED BY REVSTU:
DO.
NOT.
POST.
THE.
SAME.
COMMENT.
TWICE.
EVER.
HOW.
MANY.
FUCKING.
TIMES.
DO.
I.
HAVE.
TO.
SAY.
IT?
IF IT TRIPPED THE FILTERS ONCE, IT’LL TRIP THEM THE FUCKING SECOND TIME AS WELL.]
Eileen Carson says:
28 February, 2021 at 1:34 am
Geoff Aberdein evidence in Inquiry hands Sunday Times reports
link to archive.vn
Thank you for the link Eileen.
The interesting bit:
“The Sunday Times has been given details of Aberdein’s evidence to the Scottish parliamentary committee investigating the SNP government’s unlawful handling of complaints against Salmond, who testified on Friday.””
If the committee have Aberdeins’ evidenciary statement (and we know they do), have not yet published it for whatever reasons, and it is now in the hands of the media, surely given Alex Salmonds’ testimony and challenge to the committee on Friday to issue a notice to compel his counsel to give them evidence which the COPFS has refused to, then they must now publish the Aberdein documents in full on their website come Monday morning along with evidence from Alex Salmonds legal team before Wednesday monring.
The Aberdein evidence in concert with Alex Salmonds testimony and evidence will paint a very stark contrast to the scene that the public and the Scottish Parliament have been spoon fed by Nicola Sturgeon and her coterie through a raft of illegal leaks to the Daily Record and very public smear campaigns ran on social media in addition to the MSM.
The first half of next week is shaping up to be very, very interesting indeed.
A few people seem to have misunderstood my comment. When I said 50% sure, that’s got nothing to do with the number of jurors, it was just a rough example of how confident the jury might be in someone’s guilt. Just making the point that there’s a large gap between proving something “beyond reasonable doubt” and it definitely not happening. A not guilty verdict does not imply certainty that nothing happened. A jury could believe that someone probably committed the crime, but find them not guilty, because there is reasonable doubt about it.
Again, this is a general comment, and in Salmond’s case, I’m fairly certain that the jury were confident that most of the accusations did not happen at all. But that doesn’t mean this article is correct.
There are other errors too. “It’s not up to them to decide whether things that have been alleged are crimes – that’s been determined in advance by the police and the Procurator Fiscal.”
The police and procurator fiscal do not always interpret the law correctly. So it is up to the court (although I believe the judge, rather than the jury) to decide whether the things that have been alleged are crimes. In the Salmond case, an example would be the “hair pinging”. Salmond admitted this happened – but he was found not guilty because, obviously, this is not sexual assault. But according to the police and procurator fiscal, it was, so it’s lucky the court had a role.
Sam says:
28 February, 2021 at 3:30 am
—
Wrap this nonsense.
Your out of your depth and risking arrest under Contempt of Court Act
Sam says:
28 February, 2021 at 3:30 am
—
Wrap this nonsense.
You’re way out of your depth and also risking arrest under Contempt of Court Act
O often find that where there’s smoke, there is often a liar.
“SNP sources predict Leslie Evans, the head of Scotland’s civil service, will be ousted over her role in the affair. The SNP chief executive, Peter Murrell, who is also Sturgeon’s husband, and her chief of staff, Liz Lloyd, are also tipped to move.” link to archive.vn
The idea that those three could go and this would be over is just another example of Sturgeon treating everybody like idiots. Maybe every single SNP politician could resign except Sturgeon — would that suffice? No.
The SNP will soon be no more than a pile of dry bones lying on the floor of a forgotten desert; Nicola, the solitary buzzard, standing guard over them, refusing to accept the feast is over.
Not sure exactly happened to the complaint from Ms. E but I believe Alex was acquitted. So she must also get her anonymity. If she was the ringleader and then abandoned them at the last minute, I would find that totally disgusting.
She played a blinder on those women, although temporary.
Saigon will fall soon
People who just list out the charges with zero mention of the defense or the verdicts are trying to just put AS back on trial.
I would consider them trolls at this point and I think alas we will see more and more of it as the heat really now intensifies against Sturgeon’s regime.
So if Geoff Aberdein’s evidence is in Inquiry hands as the Sunday Times reports, and it were to emerge in the Public Domain, then it would have to be discussed by the Committee, as well as face the Court of Public Opinion.
… which means that NS is now Rupert Murdoch’s unwilling Puppet on a String.
Mac @ 5.56am. “Sturgeon’s regime”, you nailed it in one, it’s not a democracy.
From that times article, looks like the sacrificial lambs are being prepared.
None should be entitled to a penny of taxpayer funded pension.
Those with even a smudge on of criminality in their actions should be referred to olive for enquiry.
But most of all, even if stretching credibility and arguing no direct knowledge nor involvement by NS, just for presiding over this, surely she must go. The sacrificial lambs will be designed to save her. We cannot allow that.
Jaf says:
28 February, 2021 at 7:29 am
From that times article, looks like the sacrificial lambs are being prepared.
————
Once the lambs realise they are lambs one of them may break ranks and blow the whole thing open.
Los says:
28 February, 2021 at 6:01 am
So if Geoff Aberdein’s evidence is in Inquiry hands as the Sunday Times reports, and it were to emerge in the Public Domain, then it would have to be discussed by the Committee, as well as face the Court of Public Opinion.
_____________________
link to theguardian.com
I’m neither a Sturgeon-ite or a Salmond-it e, merely just an SNP voter wishing for our independence. Looking through this website in recent times, I firmly believe that there are as many “staunch ‘unionists posting/trolling on here now, as there are independence seekers.
@PDidds – I remember a whistle-blower stepped forward to complain about the behaviour at a Government owned fishing office in Scrabster. She was treated appallingly badly by all at Scotgov. That was to send-out a message to all future potential whistle-blowers.
I appreciate what AS said on Friday about it not being about bad Scottish Government, but bad leaders of that Government. But, there are an awful lot of bad leaders currently in place and I cannot see the quality of people we need being ready to step forward into that environment.
The survation poll showing independence support now at 43% . Is the very reason Nicola must go. She is now a liability.
“Following her graduation, Sturgeon completed her legal traineeship at McClure Naismith, a Glasgow firm of solicitors, in 1995. After qualifying as a solicitor, she worked for Bell & Craig, a firm of solicitors in Stirling, and later at the Drumchapel Law Centre in Glasgow from 1997 until her election to the Scottish Parliament in 1999.”
Not exactly settiing the legal world alight…
@Aquarius 27 February, 2021 at 3:25 pm
“We have in Scotland what is called an Adersarial criminal system whereas in France, for example they have an Inquisitorial criminal system.
In the French system, the job of the court is to work out insofar as they can what happened.
She has gone too far. The finding of Not Guilty has a corollary namely that it has not been proved beyond reasonable doubt that the Alphabetties were truthful. It certainly does not mean that they have been accused of being liars. Naturally there is specific evidence which can be led in certain specific cases which can be referred to, to demonstrate that, for example, a complainer (“victim/survivor”) is a liar but a verdict of Not Guilty does not of itself speak to any evidence, merely that the case was NOT PROVED BEYOND REASONABLE DOUBT.
I agree that NS is unfit to be FM and ought to resign for the good of the country. She has allowed the SNP to be ruined as a party of Government and has turned it into a party for a minority with overtones (not undertones) of Stalinism.
I also agree that she is questioning the jury’s decision.”
You have a point, some googling showed that Sturgeon has History on knowing better than Judges and Jury’s link to sundaypost.com
Let’s face the music. If she clings on. Forget independence. See how quickly public trust can destroy the party, the movement.
All down to one leaders corruption. If she goes and we genuinely clear out the party , we still have a chance. However we are now in rebuild mode. We are going backwards just now.
wee monkey says:
28 February, 2021 at 8:22 am
“Following her graduation, Sturgeon completed her legal traineeship at McClure Naismith, a Glasgow firm of solicitors, in 1995. After qualifying as a solicitor, she worked for Bell & Craig, a firm of solicitors in Stirling, and later at the Drumchapel Law Centre in Glasgow from 1997 until her election to the Scottish Parliament in 1999.”
Not exactly settiing the legal world alight…
—-
There’s probably reasons she moved out of the law arena, aside from politics.
I can think of a few words that may help fill out those reasons:
Incompetence, unreliability, bringing the profession into disrepute, misrepresenting the law, attacking the professionalism and viability of the judiciary and jury system, breaching the ministerial code.
Actually, come to think of it those are reasons I think she would not be welcomed back into the legal world.
Ho-hum.. what will she do after politics, because lets face it she’s completely fucked any career prospects she had in law with her performance the other day.
I see the National is once again running the magical ring-fenced money fairy tale link to archive.is.
The National would seem to be aiding and abetting the party in the cover-up of the misuse of funds.
Looks like they’re going to try and tell us that is will have been spent on online content. Easy stuff to use to hide their dirty fingerprints.
Readers may well be preoccupied with the issue of NS breaking the ministerial code but we have concrete proof that John Swinney did so in June 2019.
It seems to be a bad habit.
A culture of dishonesty now so deeply embedded that it has become the norm.
And it is doing our international reputation no favours at all.
link to tns2019.org
Latest poll has SNP on track to win 70 Holyrood seats.
Good news for all Scots seeking independence.
Scott says:
Try not to forget again, please
Ruby replies
I’ve already forgotten. Decided to toughen up and not cave in to bullies especially not highly aggressive self appointed moderators.
The discussion is about:
“The behaviour complained of was found by a jury not to constitute criminal conduct and Alex Salmond is innocent of criminality, but that doesn’t mean the behaviour complained of didn’t happen and I think it’s important that we don’t lose sight of that.”
Perhaps you and Al-Stuart could tell me how you can have a discussing about ‘the behaviour complained about’ without discussing the behaviour?
“gullaneno4 says:
28 February, 2021 at 8:51 am
Latest poll has SNP on track to win 70 Holyrood seats.
Good news for all Scots seeking independence.”
I gather the latest Indy poll puts No in the lead and if that is correct then it must be a taxi and cuffs for Sturgeon and her coven. The ("Tractor" - Ed)s work is done.
Clavie- Support for Indy has been dropping back over the last few months. Survation now has us below Union support.
A number of reasons.
Complacency – No campaign so no momentum.
Normalisation of Brexit- The fickle support ebbs away as Scots get used to Brexit. SHOCK factor has a shelf life.
No Referendum- So nothing to build to.
Corruption- Trust in SNP and Holyrood has been ripped apart.
We can all close our eyes and wheesht for Indy, and watch Scotland evaporate. Or we clear out the SNP , which is rotting from the head and rebuild.
We have to be realistic. This may take 5 years!
highseastim says:
28 February, 2021 at 8:10 am
…I firmly believe that there are as many “staunch ‘unionists posting/trolling on here now, as there are independence seekers.
Possibly. But please do not assume that those of us demanding that the rule of law should apply, that there is an end to the malicious prosecution of innocent people, that human rights are upheld etc, are unionists.
I find that insulting.
Anne Marie D says:
28 February, 2021 at 2:19 am
Check her comments out everyone as are the most sensible I have read for a long time. Reflects the overwhelming majority of people in Scotland.
Should be required reading for you SNP politicos munching your croissants this morning as she explains why you have all got it so wrong
Meg merrilees says:
28 February, 2021 at 12:50 am
Not sure why so many people need to be repeating all the accusations against Alex on this website tonight. Is it necessary?
Ruby replies
Difficult to discuss ‘the behaviour complained about’ without mentioning ‘the behaviour complained about’?
@TSN2019 – You complain earlier of John Swinney and you complain in another post about ‘the mallicious prosecution of innocent people’.
Am I safe to presume that your two posts are related…ie that John Swinney is a mallicious prosecuter of innocent people?
I’ll bet I am correct.
We seem to be surrounded by Holyrood parliamentarians, and Mr Swinney is the premier example, who believe not so much in the ‘Me too’ movement, but in the ‘Not me’ movement. It appears ages since we have heard anything from Mr Swinney. I wonder why that is.
I correct my earlier post. Support for Indy is at 50 50 with No. Indy should have 20 to 25 point lead after Scotland was dragged out of EU by racist Tory voting England. That failure lays entirely at the door of Sturgeon and her sycophants and their total and their treacherous failure to promote Scottish Independence.
With all my heart I will want to vote SNP on the first vote. However, if Sturgeon remains, then I will find it really difficult. Her behaviour over the last few months, has been downright disgusting.
I really don’t like her. I think it’s essential that she goes. I hate Robertson, but I could hold my nose and vote SNP.
I admit Salmond is a bit of a hero for me, so I am biased. There will be thousands like me.
Clavie- with don’t knows Indy is at 43% and union 44%. So we are behind.
Of all the people to be asked to talk on BBC R4 this morning about NS/AS – they have invited Kirsty Wark!
No apparent bias- aye right!
Besides the point. As said before. It should never be this close. We should be in the 60s.
The daily Covid briefings have a shelf life. Does anyone still watch them?
Wed 18 Mar 2020 16.43 GMT
Alex Salmond trial told Sturgeon took part in meeting with complainant
Complainant gave no hint of ‘personal involvement’, Edinburgh high court hears
Nicola Sturgeon took part in a meeting with a complainant and one of Alex Salmond’s former aides, a witness has told the high court in Edinburgh at the former first minister’s sexual assault trial.
Source: (Guardian) link to tinyurl.com
Rev, please put up a new post on anything!
Jesus, just because Alex looks human doesn’t mean
his intellect isn’t from a far off universe.
Alex was cleared of criminality in court! Finished.
I do see time after time a prolonged and vicious attack
from all corners of the powers that be to ruin him.
These have been criminal acts and we need to identify those behind them.
I’d take a swipe at Murrell trying to put pressure on the police was an attempt by
him to secure his 6 figure position and ensure his wife didn’t lose her 6 figure job to Alex.
Evan is a real nasty piece of work who is controlled from Westminster and what wouldn’t they
do to ensure the can continue to rob and abuse Scotland.
We have a Lord Advocate that has either turned idiot or someone with a hold over him
as made him try to justify the unjustifiable.
The Crown office is an English Office where England comes first.
Again, if they can corrupt or distort standard procedure to criminalise a main player in the independence movement then they will be happy to tear up the rule book.
The Police themselves should never have put so much time and money on trying to nail Alex
and to provide the words to lead women into complaining is criminal in itself.
Can we look out from our selves for a moment to see what else is out there.
We have a bungling buffoon Boris ruling over us.
This is a man who has had sex with a pigs head at Cambridge.
This is a man who won’t actually say how many children he has but we know of
6 with multiple partners.
We seen him running ragged in trying to support a blond American woman’s business like he was
obviously after something for himself.
He won’t answer but she says they were having an affair.
The latest woman he is with had a serious incident with Boris in her home.
A claim was made that she found out Boris was chasing yet another woman while being in a
relationship with her. He must have been physically restraining her as she was screening at him
to get off her and get out of her house.
He didn’t leave and neighbours fearing for the women called the police.
It’s Bojo, the old Etonian millionaire so the police did fuck all.
Where is the 22 man team investigating and leading all the women he has
met over the last 2 years?
Why hasn’t their Crown prosecuted and Lord Advocate and even Senior Tories not
colluding to put such a slimy lying creep in jail???
Now, if next week your pretty young daughter was offered a job that paid the same to be secretary
to Alex or Boris. Would any of you say “Go with Boris”?
Leave Alex and respect all that he has done for Scotland and what he has had to endure from so many malicious forces.
Focus on getting the Tories and the Boris’ out of our country and out of our lives.
Stop on one and start now on the other!
Big Jock says:
28 February, 2021 at 9:27 am
With all my heart I will want to vote SNP on the first vote. However, if Sturgeon remains, then I will find it really difficult. Her behaviour over the last few months, has been downright disgusting.
I really don’t like her. I think it’s essential that she goes. I hate Robertson, but I could hold my nose and vote SNP.
I admit Salmond is a bit of a hero for me, so I am biased. There will be thousands like me.
—-
I cannot with a clear conscience vote for the SNP any longer, the actions of the party leadership against the members and the actions of elected party members has been morally reprehensible.
The way in which they have ignored and blocked the NEC committees from operating, the way they have blocked and delayed conferences in a bid to dictate party direction instead of letting democratic votes at conference steer the party.
The way in which they have loaded the NEC with unelected members from affilliate groups is not democratic, 3rd party unelected affiliates should not be on the NEC, they should not be in a position to manipulate the party as they are not accountable to the party membership, that is a huge democratic deficit within the party.
Until there is a complete clear out of the party from the CEO down to the Business Convener and a complete clear out of the NEC, I as member for over 20 years will not be voting for the SNP in its current form.
Catching up on the “through-the-night” comments, two in particular stick out, and bear repeating again for the morning readers. I cannot agree with Anne-Marie McD enough – especially her final line – and at some point I’ll write a post of my own outlining why.
In the meantime:
Baxter1967 says:
28 February, 2021 at 9:13 am
Anne Marie D says:
28 February, 2021 at 2:19 am
Check her comments out everyone as are the most sensible I have read for a long time. Reflects the overwhelming majority of people in Scotland.
Should be required reading for you SNP politicos munching your croissants this morning as she explains why you have all got it so wrong
Anne Marie D says:
28 February, 2021 at 2:19 am
This may jar with some but if you are not a woman you will never really understand the ingrained fear of Male sexual violence.
I am in my 50s and I still wouldn’t walk home in unlit streets and my husband would still expect me to get a taxi home from a night out. This is just the way we live our lives. Of course I don’t think all men are a threat BUT some are. It has always been so. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know that and that is where the radar comes in. Sometimes you just know when you aren’t safe and sometimes you just know when to tell someone to get to f**k and hope they will back off.
I don’t think for a minute that a rainbow will protect me and being kind is a very very dangerous misunderstanding of a natural safety radar. I have always thought that the backlash will come when fathers (who remember when raging hormones dominated their youth) realise that mature adult males can get full access to their teenage daughters.
However, women are not some angelic creation. The saddest thing for me with the very clear stitch up of Alex Salmond is the immense damage to all women whether in public life or victims of sexual crime. A sham of a feminist or more accurately a female narcissist posing as a feminist has damaged every single woman who needs to keep that danger radar. She has also damaged every single man who now doesn’t know how they can interact with women in a natural fashion.
The political damage to the SNP is significant and I want Independence every waking moment but the social damage to us all is absolutely unforgivable.
Captain Yossarian
Am I safe to presume that your two posts are related…ie that John Swinney is a mallicious prosecuter of innocent people?
No. We do not have that evidence. JS has just attempted to cover-up a scandal (rather ineptly) and dug himself into a hole. But he does appear to be content to see innocent people hounded by the regulators and he did mislead parliament.
I know JS and have spoken to him directly on a number of occasions. He always ‘seemed’ reasonable. But what happenes behind the scenes is quite different.
link to tns2019.org
As things stand atm I will not be voting SNP in May and that breaks my heart.
GRA, HCB, nicla and groupies have NO interest in Indy. They have NO interest in Scotland, only self interest – that’s not the way it works. And trying to kill off your best assets ie Alex and Joanna…well 🙁
Cut off the rotten head.
I will try and put a positive spin on events.
Corruption in government is common, but when found, it must be dealt with. That Sturgeon has been exposed. Is a good thing. Why? Because if it had gone on any longer, we would be in God knows what state.
The fact that we are outraged by it and will not stand for it. Shows that we have an ethical movement and country.
Sturgeon is a useless leader. If it took this to bring her down, then so be it. She needed to go anyway. She is a charlatan of independence.
So we are in a mess! However everything that happens next week is essential and necessary.
We can only move on once Sturgeon is gone. We have had 6 years of stagnation and corruption.
The polls will not please is over the next few months. But there was never going to be a referendum under Sturgeon. Certainly not this year.
We have time to get a referendum, with a date. Then start our campaign on a high base. We win when we have a campaign!
TNS2019 – We are both in similar situations and we are both taking advice.
My advice is that we are at a stage when accountability will be laid at someone’s door.
What I have found over the years is that if you want to get anything done, take it outside Scotland and get it done. In the approximate words of Jim Sillars, the toxic tentacles of the SNP have penetrated all of our previously trusted public bodies such that they are now useless.
Alex Salmond said more or less the same, didn’t he.
What we are experiencing just now is the managed decline of all of our public bodies. Political affiliation and loyalty to the SNP is now more valued than ability and honesty.
A very dark situation for the country. I find the thought of independence unthinkable at the moment.
Garavelli in Scotland on Sunday with her take on Salmond’s inquiry appearance. It’s long and tedious, but also quite funny as she’s trying to smear Alex once again but trying (and failing) to do it with subtlety.
Anne Marie D says:
28 February, 2021 at 2:19 am
“Sometimes you just know when you aren’t safe and sometimes you just know when to tell someone to get to f**k and hope they will back off.”
Which is why I find it unbelievable that a woman who felt she had previously been seriously at risk of sexual assault would put herself in the position of being alone in a building with the same man from whom that perceived threat had come. Sorry, I just can’t see that happening. It’s Holyrood, not Hollywood.
Journalistic standards at the Hootsmon continue to drop. In Garavelli’s article Salmond is described as being “sobre-suited” instead of sober-suited. How does a real and honest journo stay ‘sobre’ these days?
I wonder what Michelle Thomson, Mark McDonald and Neil Hanvey make of the Sturgeon situation?
They were all forced to resign from the party by Sturgeon when the press just speculated they may have done something wrong. In Thomson’s case she did literally nothing wrong, McDonald looks like his worst crime was to have a sense of humour and Hanvey for at worst clumsy use of social media.
None of them were ever accussed of missleading parliament but all of them were marched out the SNP just for suspicion of doing something on the pretext that the SNP was meant to be whiter than white and the media specualtion was bringing the party into disrepute. Will Sturgeon be having a word with hersef and recommending she leaves the party as she is clearly bringing the party into disrepute?
Riddick, Murrell, Lloyd and others are still SNP members depspite more than exceeding the threshold taken to remove Thomson, McDonald and Hanvey. If Sturgeon survices what is the new boundary for member conduct?
Even survival for Sturgeon leaves a party that is unsalvageable. When a member is more likely to face punishment for reading wings than trying to put an innocent man in jail you have a fundamental problem that is not solved by just changing the leader.
link to archive.vn
Inconvenient evidence: “The material from Salmond’s former chief of staff, Geoff Aberdein, also supports claims made by the former first minister that Sturgeon’s administration leaked the identity of one of the women complaining about him”.
Wonder what this coming week will hold?
Hopefully nicla will not hang on but a hae ma doubts
1st June 2017
Journalists unite with open letter damning Scottish Government handling of FoI requests
Some of Scotland’s leading journalists have signed an open letter to Scottish parliamentarians calling for a review of Scottish Government handling of Freedom of Information (FoI) procedures, claiming widespread failures to comply with laws on the supply of information held by public bodies.?
Source: link to tinyurl.com
laukat
When a member is more likely to face punishment for reading wings than trying to put an innocent man in jail you have a fundamental problem that is not solved by just changing the leader.
Furthermore Michelle Thomson is a rape survivor. A real one, not a pretendy one. Brave lady indeed.
Ruby @9.18
Apologies if this reply seems to appear twice. I began to reply to this on my phone but it disappeared – perhaps submitted?
Why do you need to discuss ‘the behaviour complained about’? The debate has moved on.
The behaviour was discussed in a Court of Law with a decision – verdict- taken by an independent jury of ‘ordinary’ people. That is all we need to know.
We are constantly reminded that the jury has heard all the evidence, whilst we at home have not; therefore, sometimes a jury verdict may seem, at face, to be difficult to comprehend.
In that case, if the accused feels that the decision is unjust they can appeal against it.
This appeal has not happened in the Salmond case so it would seem that the accused have ‘accepted’ the verdict. So should we.
The court case is in the past and AS is no longer on trial. The law of the land does not allow for ‘double jeopardy’ therefore, if someone is tried and found ‘not guilty’ they cannot be retried, nor should they be continuously held in suspicion.
Currently AS is being constantly smeared and subjected to innuendo – this risks interpretation as challenging the jury verdict.
NS, as a qualified lawyer and, more importantly, as FM knows what is acceptable (legal) and unacceptable (illegal) conduct and the boundary between them. On this occasion, the debate is whether she has overstepped that boundary.
We have to be careful what we post on this website and sometimes it is not the best forum to go into detail like this where there is a severe consequence from anything that can allow jigsaw identification of the ‘complainers’.
No personal criticism intended.
A poster on here has probably just given themselves a holiday at Her Majestys pleasure. Stop being stupid.
An excellent article from Iain McWhirter ,
“ Salmond’s thunderous masterclass was not so much a smoking gun as a barrage of cannonfire “
“ If nothing else, it was a masterclass in how to present a case. Alex Salmond’s six-hour Holyrood epic was coherent, unemotional, authoritative and convincing. “
link to archive.is
Taranaich
Thank you for finally clarifying something that has mystified me since I first started to follow this sorry saga.
If any of the complainants believes a miscarriage of justice has occurred in their case, why have they not appealed the verdict of the jury?
I just could not understand why such an obvious recourse would not be adopted, so I was starting to think that no such appeals process exists in Scots law.
Your post strongly suggests that an appeal would be possible if anybody truly believed that the jury reached one or more incorrect verdicts. Assuming that you have this right, supporters of AS really need to be making more effort to get this fact out there.
Alec Salmond was found innocent and walked free. None of the complainants has appealed that verdict. None of the people attempting to re-try him by innuendo and smears have called for an appeal or a re-trial. To me, that is the most convincing evidence of all.
As others have said it is unbelievable that we are now behind No, even if that is one poll conducted by a newspaper whose output mainly consists of running photos of a long-dead princess most days.
Regardless of this poll’s precise accuracy, Indisputably momentum has stalled in recent months. This is at a time when Scottish food is rotting in ports, Scottish companies are folding due to Brexit, and the Tory PM is like some kind of acid-trip parody, the biggest tool ever to have held the office, while Labour look permanently finished. Yet we are BEHIND?!
IMO NS’s response to covid has not been as popular as it is made out to be, but the timing of this poll indicates that this scandal is the proximate cause. What a surprise eh, who could have seen that coming? Only anyone who has been following it for the last year!
This disgraceful scandal has also tarnished Scottish institutions, humiliated our Parliament, and shown up huge flaws in our ancient legal system. It is allowing hard-right figures like Andrew Neil and Liam Fox to attack the idea of independence.
Rather than be hounded out like Nixon it would be much better if Sturgeon went now. Make up some nonsense about the stress of covid but just go. She won’t though.
The complainers can only appeal on a matter of law. Under the double jeopardy introduced by Kenny McAskill they can ‘re open the Sa!mind case only if new and COMPELLING evidence comes forward which admitted at the time of the trial.
Captain Yossarian @ 9:58
“the toxic tentacles of the SNP have penetrated all of our previously trusted public bodies”
On the contrary, the social institutions in Scotland which we clearly have difficulties with continue to be run and led by a privileged meritocratic elite that is anything but nationalist, and this has aye been the case no matter who sits in Holyrood. One of the weaknesses of the SNP, even since Alex was leader, is they did not put independence people in charge of Scotland’s social institutions after they were elected, appointees continued to be proposed by UK state entities especially the UK civil service. This has allowed a predominantly unionist elite to continue to undermine Scotland and the efforts of the people to secure independence. It includes what Osborne referred to as ‘the arms’ of the British state in Scotland – crown and civil service.
What post-colonial literature tells us (e.g. Fanon) is that a dominant National Party and its pampered bourgeoisie elite will tend to make its own ‘accommodation with colonialism’, which includes joint attacks by the National Party and colonial authorities aimed at quashing the more radical elements of the independence movement, much as we see now. This is quite different from what you imply vis-a-vis any SNP ‘penetration’ of social institutions.
Nicola Sturgeon has cultivated an image of calm reassurance as well as honesty and trustworthiness. This image has been a great asset throughout the current pandemic which even opponents have approved of her handling of it. I go into the office regularly and even the die hard unionists colleagues I work with agree that she has handled it really well.
However, when Sturgeon is put under any bit of pressure or scrutiny, she starts to flap, deflect and evade.
She has gotten away with it for so long because the political opposition are so bad and the independence movement have seen these as deliberate attacks to undermine her and the movement.
With the whole Salmond affair, her mask has slipped and for ones like myself who had believed totally in her and her leadership of both the SNP and the independence movement whether she is fit for the task.
The question needs to be asked about her character where she questions the verdict of an innocent man and in doing so, denigrates the character of that innocent man.
Quite frankly, she doesn’t know when to shut up as she is digging an even bigger hole for herself.
I’ve no doubt that she is competent enough to lead a devolved administration but is becoming obvious day after day that she is totally out of her depth to turn that devolved administration to a more powerful one, never mind to change it to a government of a sovereign independent nation.
I had posted previously that she will be gone soon and to vote for the SNP as a first vote in May’s election. However, I now have to question whether that is the right thing to do.
The SNP under her tenure has been absolute abysmal and the independence argument has not been forward in any way. In fact it has went backwards. Nearly seven years on from the last referendum and we are still talking the once in a generation comment made by Alex Salmond and absolutely nothing about real things like currency and trade with the rUK.
No party has any god given right to rule and that certainly applies to the SNP. They are trying to legislate for issues that are clearly unpopular and will potentially damage the fabric of our society. As a party that is supposed to be delivering independence, they have completely failed at it. Lets be honest about it, if there was a referendum in a couple of months time, does anybody think it can be won?
I think a lot of people need to think carefully over the next couple of months whether to vote for the SNP or not. For myself, I’m not sure I might even vote at all. It does seem pointless at the moment.
BBC England in Scotland has just advertised that they would like
a cross section of political views to contact them and participate
in both TV and Radio programs leading up to the election.
Go to
bbc.co.U.K./scotvoters
My phone won’t allow the letters u and k in lower case
and insists on puting a dot between the so please correct just a lower case u & k
Let’s go for it but remember if you say you are a Tory, Labour or Lib Dem outraged by SNP
you will be first to be selected.
If you have a telephone interview as an SNP supporter then try to sound dumb and move up
the selection ranks.
Our focus is on Scottish independence and not party splits or the conduct of individuals.
Good Luck! Your country needs you!
-John Main-
You can’t appeal a not guilty or not proven verdict. If acquitted by a jury that is final.
There was a rule called double jeopardy which still exists in English common law and similar systems like the USA and the Commonwealth countries, which holds that you cannot be tried again for a crime of which you have been acquitted. However, this rule was modified in Scotland- the bill was introduced by Kenny McAskill while a minister under Alex Salmond- which allows for a few exceptions when new evidence has come to light- I think really major crimes like sexual offences and murder.
Lets not forget that the permanent secretary is a post in the British civil service, so BBC, we are ‘not ready’ for independence, getting rid of the UK role in Scotland’s governance would be a great start.
@Alf Baird – Have a look at Education Scotland, Alf. Headquartered in Livingstone. An example of an SNP quango. Is this what you want?….more of this?
Scottish Building Standards is in the ground floor of the same building and, believe it or not, it is now run by politicians too.
10 years ago, we could do education and we could run construction. Now, and due to the SNP, we cannot do either.
Not sure if my question is too far off topic or if the answer would clarify matters in any way but its recorded up-thread that one of the prosecution witnesses (woman E) was able to withdraw her charge on day 6 – prior to defence having been heard and despite, presumably, not having been one of the original complainants in respect of the police investigation (ie a principle witness).
Malicious behaviour aside, I’d have thought there were stringent rules on such changes if only to prevent defence council being dangerously misled by the case for the prosecution so, (inverted) Petrocelli notwithstanding, anyone know under what circumstance and protocol such late changes to a prosecution case are allowed, ie at request of prosecution, judge, medical advice, etc. and always at discretion of the defence or simply at whim of the witness?
Captain Yossarian @ 10:37 am
The hundreds of social institutions in Scotland employing in aggregate hundreds of thousands of people are hardly ‘run’ by SNP politicians, which would be impossible for a cabinet of a dozen or so anyway. They are run by the same small army of privileged meritocratic and mostly unionist elites who have always ran them.
You might wish to read this Report looking at the social background of people that hold positions of power and influence in Scotland: link to gov.uk
The ‘establishment’ actually running Scotland and wielding power over the rest of us is rather more than a few politicians.
That outburst at the Covid_19 briefing gets more astonishing each time you think about it. To some, it might seem NS considers many of these women to be friends and is allowing her personal relationships to cloud her judgement. Contrast this with the way she has treated AS, someone she has known and worked with probably longer than anyone else.
The way the evidence was collected and collated and information disseminated to the press should make anyone think twice about how trustworthy some of these women are.
If I were Ms Sturgeon, I would look twice at my so-called women friends. Notwithstanding the damage to the institutions of our country, who benefits in the SNP from the damage done to her and Alex Salmond?
She needs to watch out for the backstabbers because they will come for her too.
@A Person says:
28 February, 2021 at 10:28 am
“There was a rule called double jeopardy which still exists in English common law and similar systems like the USA and the Commonwealth countries, which holds that you cannot be tried again for a crime of which you have been acquitted.”
I think in England you can be retried, provided there is new evidence in the same way as in Scotland.
@effigy
The Sex with a Pigs head story is basically utter bollocks.
Private eye showed up Isabel Oakenshott and Lord Ashcroft for including it as pure titillation in their David Cameron biography
link to en.wikipedia.org
Anne Marie D says:
28 February, 2021 at 2:19 am
This may jar with some but if you are not a woman you will never really understand the ingrained fear of Male sexual violence.
Ruby replies
I would never walk in unlit streets. My fear walking in the streets at night when it’s quiet is not of male sexual violence but of being mugged and having my handbag stolen. This fear is due to past experience.
Country type roads in Urban areas, the canal, & Arthur’s seat are places I don’t go alone even in broad daylight for fear of male sexual violence. There is no escape from these places. This fear again is due to past experience. Friends & family think I’m being irrational. Could be true!
When I was a teenager we often came across a ‘flasher’ in the park.
A man who would expose himself to you when you walked past. This was a very scary experience especially if you were alone.
I did have another scary experience with a ‘flasher’ later on in life in a place similar to Arthur’s seat and also a scary experience on a country type road.
I’m fine on country roads in rural areas but only in daylight. At night the fear is of ghosts, bats and falling in the ditch.
Not sure why we didn’t tell our parents or the police about the ‘flasher’ but we didn’t I’m sure it must have been illegal for a man to flash his penis at children. Is this something that still happens?
Not sure how I would react to a ‘flasher’ in a changing room nowadays but as a teenager I would have been horrified and I would never have returned to the changing room.
It would be very difficult to report a ‘flasher’ in a changing room nowadays. You would probably be accused of transphobia.
On the scale of what many women experience these are very minor but still they have had an effect.
Could it be the women so much in favour of self-id have led very sheltered lives?
@Alf Baird – I’m not political, but I would be happy for Scotland to become independent if I was confident that it would be run lawfully.
The SNP have been in charge of Holyrood for 13 or 14 years which is long enough, isn’t it? If change was coming and it would be for the better, then it would be obvious by now and we would be able to point it out.
Instead, what I have pointed-out to you is that the change is resulting in a toxic public service in Scotland that we cannot trust. We cannot even trust the law in Scotland any more. That is the SNP’s fault. Just ask Jim Sillars and Alex Salmond.
The project has gone off the rails somehow. My suggestion is to sort-out our delinquent legal profesion and re-setablish a strict separation between Holyrood and them.
A Person @ 10:23 am
“As others have said it is unbelievable that we are now behind No”
Not really. Rapid ongoing demographic change may help explain much of this. Which is perhaps why the Tories have done all they can to stall another independence vote as long as possible.
It is after all people who vote and their national identity and sense of belonging form a key determinant (if not the key determinant) in how they vote in a binary constitutional matter such as Scottish independence / ‘separation’ from the British state.
Can’t help thinking Wednesday at the inquiry is when we will see NS in a role trying to assert her version of events on the committee to have them retry AS.
Lets hope his lawyers have their evidence in before Wednesday.
This article shows again NS as quite the manipulative person.
BTW she still has such a strong fan club of wannabes on SM.
I can’t even give a summary account of facts or pose questions on Indy groups before a woke fan denegrates me.
Won’t bother on Facebook any more.
See all these people reporting the charges against AS in great detail
What the hell are you playing at?
I’ve scrolled past every one of them.
You’re as bad as the tabloids.
He was found NG of all charges, that’s what’s important and the fact they all lied except Ms F, who didn’t want to even go to court
Sam 11.52
You start off talking about “assault” then later on you describe it as “behaviour”.
AS was on trial for assault not behaviour and was found NOT guilty but you seem to have a strange problem accepting that.
A Person @ 10.28 and Beaker
Thank you for the clarification on legal points.
Since you cannot appeal a ‘not guilty’ verdict then it perhaps goes some way to explaining NS’s behaviour as she must be frustrated that her seemingly simple, ‘cunning plan’to politically castrate AS has been thwarted by a flippin’ jury.
A possible reason Humza considered introducing courts with no jury?
The whole thing is a mess – when you become the story it is time to resign, Nicola.
Well said Liz – I’ve been scrolling past them too. It’s just mud-raking.
Meg merrilees says:
No personal criticism intended.
Ruby replies
Great!
I’m pleased about that.
Well ,well well , Would never have guessed it. Sturgeons appearnce at the inquiry has been delberately arranged to coincide with the very same day as the budget. When most TV and radio channels and the rest of the UK’s attention is elswhere on the budget, Sturgeon’s inadequate performance will go on unseen.
-Beaker-
Ah I see thought it was still in place there.
-Meg-
Definitely, that is the beauty of juries, they were introduced after the fall of the Stuarts I think, so that the king would not be able to chuck anyone he liked in jail. I bet that a re-elected NS would announce they are “inherently sexist/white/cis/fucking whatever” and must be abolished. Countless thousands in the public sector and professions are so petrified of being called a bigot that they would agree.
Liz says:
28 February, 2021 at 11:04 am
See all these people reporting the charges against AS in great detail
What the hell are you playing at?
I’ve scrolled past every one of them.
You’re as bad as the tabloids.
Ruby replies
This feels like personal criticism.
Is it intended or not intended?
Ooft, Sunday times has the Aberdein evidence..
link to twitter.com
Yes let’s us all have butcher’s aprons on everything!
Paint your front doors, sheds, cars red white and blue ensuring the red is prominent okay
Bob Mack says:
28 February, 2021 at 10:15 am
A poster on here has probably just given themselves a holiday at Her Majestys pleasure. Stop being stupid.
————
Aye he has totally Dani Garavelli’d it.
Mind you it never cost her a thing when she did the exact same thing.
Few interesting characters pitched up in the last 24-48 hours.
A question I’ve been asking myself recently was where were the trade unions during the government’s actions against AS. Were some/all of the complainants members of the trade unions operating within the civil service? Did they approach their union reps for advice and legal support? If not, why not?
If yes, were the unions told to stay clear and not to get involved (by whom?) or did the unions make that decision themselves?
It’s been 30+ years since I was a member of a trade union, but during that time I had total confidence in my union reps who were also my work colleagues.
Vote SNP in May? FFS if these numpties on that committee are typical of the average SNP MSP then we’re already in “the people will vote for a monkey in a yellow rosette” territory.
Ruby says:
28 February, 2021 at 11:16 am
Liz says:
28 February, 2021 at 11:04 am
See all these people reporting the charges against AS in great detail
What the hell are you playing at?
I’ve scrolled past every one of them.
You’re as bad as the tabloids.
Ruby replies
This feels like personal criticism.
Is it intended or not intended?
—-
I read it as an in general statement, not directed at anyone, but everyone!.
Liz + others point stands though – Stop publishing information on wings that can lead to a contempt of court order on your person.
Stu has stated previously that he will gladly hand over the information of any who posts a contemptible comment that the authorities come seeking.
There are ways and means of discussing topics without identifying or referencing any of the complainers involved in the criminal trial, something which an entire raft of people last night are incapable of doing as evidenced.
There is a difference of opinion in the Yes Movement regarding Nicola and Alex. Whether you think one of them is lying or two of them are lying or none of them are lying is an ongoing debate.
Factions have formed and there is a split amongst SNP voters and independence supporters falling in line behind whichever group they feel more comfortable believing.
Whatever group people have aligned with, there is one inescapable fact: Nicola Sturgeon has presided over this complete and utter shambles.
For this alone, she should resign.
Ian McCubbin says:
28 February, 2021 at 11:02 am
Don’t know if sturgeon would listen but she really needs to take note that people are turning against her personally for her Covid briefings, her attacks on AS as well as her failure to clear out Evans and Co. I have been really surprised by comments mainly from females regarding her handling of both issues and the effect it may have on the upcoming election with them intending not to vote for the SNP.
link to twitter.com
Iain Lawson. Self ID causes problems
@Breastplate,
It’s so much more than an issue between Alex and Nicola.
Would unlike to live in an Independent Scotland in which woke influence creates the problems we see ‘re GRA and Hate Crime Bill, all upervised by a government who appear at the very least to be questionable in their integrity and ability to listen to what the people actually want.
I can’t vote for that. Always for Indy though.
Personally, I have found the list of charges etc. very useful. I’ve always intended to draw up a timeline and reference list to follow because some non-SNP members I know are asking me about all of it as they begin to take note of what has been happening and how NS will react. I’d like to be more knowledgeable, to help me explain the backdrop and evidence presented to counter the accusations. I know I should’ve done this before, but I haven’t, so I’m pleased it’s here now for me to start my own notebook.
And the reason it is important? In the eyes of those questioning me, AS remains a marmite character. Consequently, those who dislike him, the majority questioning me, have a predilection to believe NS and can’t quite get their heads around why we are where we are and constantly say he’ll ruin the SNP. They don’t understand it’s already significantly compromised. Yet in trying to explain it, I’m losing sight of the charges and what was found out about them.
So personally, I’m glad of the reminder. However, absolutely no straying into jigsaw territory…….I agree that those opposing independence will leap on it.
What Sturgeon did to Salmond amply demonstrates how much she really values and prioritizes the Independence movement.
By green lighting and enabling these horrible false accusations against Salmond (the biggest hero of the independence movement, to date at least) she was effectively dropping an atom bomb on the entire movement just to take out one person!
And for the most shallow, crass, selfish reasons to do with protecting her own power and position. The damage she would do not just to Alex but the entire Independence movement was so inconsequential to her she just plowed ahead and everything else be damned. So long as Nicola still gets to be boss that is all that really mattered.
Sturgeon could not give a shit about anything apart from herself. We can see that in her psychotic reaction to the fear that Alex might return to politics and eclipse her. Normal people don’t do that.
But what makes it even worse by far is that she chose to do all that at the same time we had the historic opportunity presented by BREXIT.
Instead of securing our right to hold indyref2 at a time of our choosing Sturgeon squandered it all and instead busied herself with destroying an innocent man. Sturgeon pissed golden chances up against the wall and instead decided to besmirch and blacken the name of Alex Salmond.
If she is not a rat she is an absolute headbanger, a nutcase.
Either way get her to fuck.
link to caltonjock.com
Nicola Sturgeon commented on a-wee-peek-at-the-employment-history-of-judith-mackinnon-head-of-people-advice-for-the-
A question for Alf Baird because I think he knows the answer because he’s made the point often enough.
The new UK Government in Scotland civil service building in Scotland is I believe going to employ some 3,000 civil servants. Where do we think the majority of these civil servants will come from. And do we have any indication of where their politics will lie.
The plantation of Ulster was very real.It was done for political reasons and it laid down the seed corn for centuries of discord which continues till today. Political ethnic engineering would never happen in Scotland now …….or would it?
Re. Covid. In the next few months the usual MSM suspects will be spinning the Great War Against Coronavirus in such a way that those that stayed at home and obeyed the advice given them will be branded enemies of the state, while their virus-spreading partying (sorry, ‘freedom loving’) neighbours will be encouraged to post white feathers to them.
There is no political refuge to be found in Covid. Woe betide those who dare try to find any.
All-Stewart
Sorry, I didn’t know you had to be a member of the’Genuine Winger’ Club to post comments here. How do I join? The standard of your own contributions indicates the entrance exam isn’t intellectually challenging?
Very wise words from Anne Marie D at 2:19am—the middle of the night! [wee smiley thing].
Food for thought and a respectful thankyou.
Beaker says:
28 February, 2021 at 10:54 am
@A Person says:
28 February, 2021 at 10:28 am
“There was a rule called double jeopardy which still exists in English common law and similar systems like the USA and the Commonwealth countries, which holds that you cannot be tried again for a crime of which you have been acquitted.”
I think in England you can be retried, provided there is new evidence in the same way as in Scotland.
The operative words are ‘new evidence’. Given that there was little or NO evidence to start with and that was after a year’s investigation and goodness knows how much public money..
Or might it be suggested that these people make up even more lies in attempts to twist the motivation of a good man? THIS is where it all STOPS. People are not guilty of things just because some imbecile has an agenda and can accuse someone of illegal behaviour by implying that they ‘felt’ it to be the case.
Willie 11.46
Yes. You are correct.
link to witchesofscotland.com.
Excellent site.
The witch hunt continues I’m afraid.
The response of the SNP, or at least some of them, to the acquittal and innocence of Mr Salmond of the charges made against him, has an increasing air of unreality.
On the most generous end of the scale, having botched the complaints process and the ultimately lost the “war” of the criminal trial, there may be an element of guilt there in terms of letting some of the people involved down – I could understand that.
However, listening to Maureen Watt et al on Friday, it really seemed like the “war” against Mr Salmond was still raging away. Some of NS and other statements seem delusional to me. They just can’t accept reality and that having lost, the inevitable begins to happen – history is written by the victor.
I am really not prone to conspiracy theories but the suppression, denial and obfuscation of evidence in the Salmond enquiry has shocked me to the core. It has laid bare the self-serving agendas of some in the SNP and rightly raised serious questions about the impartiality of the Lord Advocate.
The only thing that is clear to me is that Alex Salmond is an innocent man and the futile attempts to impugn his character are simply the final helpless convulsions of a moribund regime.
What concerns me most about all of this is how Scotland and its governance is being perceived by the wider world. Scotland is effectively a one party state. One party states usually descend into corruption,and disregard for due process. Ms Sturgeon and the SNP have done Scotland no favours. Sturgeon et al have damaged the credibility of an independent Scotland, and it will take some doing to repair this damage. Furthermore ,it has given the Westminster Government of the UK an excuse( should they take it), to intervene as it did in Northern Ireland. So far Westminster has been rather too quiet about all of this. I fear it is biding it’s time. After all why get involved now whilst the whole ludicrous farrago farrago has still some way to go.
The one thing not being factored in is the declining support for independence after brexit. The EU is becoming a dirty eord in britain and they are becoming more unpopular by the minute.
When you combine these factors with the shit show that is the SNP I believe you will continue to see a continued drop in support for indy.
The scots have more internal problems in their country that are never discussed that are now coming to a head.
It’s time to sort out scotland before we can move on.
The reason they packed the charge sheet for Salmond with absurd puffed up contrived charges to pad out the blatant liars was precisely so they could list the charges all out and people would think ‘oh well there must be something to it then with so many’.
They were trying to invoke Moorov and they had war-gamed jury scenarios and believed the jury would likely fall ‘fall-back’ to convicting Salmond on a lesser charge. So they contrived as many as they could to go with the perjurers.
As Salmond said several times on Friday, if they had been successful on just one false allegation, there would have been no inquiry and no exposure of the conspiracy against him, they would have got away with it. It was only the jury and the higher courts who saved Salmond.
So people who have appeared on here very recently who are listing out only the charges again are doing so for this same reason.
It is no coincidence they appeared after Friday. This is all they have left now. The same crap they pulled for months at the trial. Well the trial ended a long time ago now.
If you really think people believe you are here to do a bit of ‘revision’ you must think we button up at the back.
Ruby, not everything is about you, love.
I told you I scrolled past all of them so didn’t notice your name.
But if you published all the alphabets with lurid detail then yes I am including you.
I mistrust the motives of anyone who felt that was necessary
What is Fabiani’s Farce playing at?
It has been evident for months now that the events surrounding the controversial meetings in March and beginning of April 2018 are very important. It was evident from the questioning of Mr Salmond on Friday that some members of the committee were most interested in those events because of the repercussions around potential breaches of the ministerial code. Is not like the discovery of those meetings was made last week, so why aren’t we further forward with this?
It was evident from the questioning that some members of the committee were also most interested in the potential breach of confidentiality effected by a civil servant disclosing the name of a complainant to Mr Aberdein.
So why is Fabiani’s Farce not pursuing, forcefully, and by exhausting every possibly avenue available to them both pieces of information? It is not like they need to dig a fckng tunnel to China, is it? So what are they waiting for?
At this moment in time we have two diametrically opposed versions of the events, those of Nicola Sturgeon and those of Mr Salmond. One of the two is wrong. So what are they doing to assess who is not telling the truth?
Nicola Sturgeon and Mr Salmond were not the only people in those meetings, were they? So why are the only ones doing all the talking? We want to hear from the other people present at those meetings, so why aren’t we hearing from them?
It has been extensively published in the press for months, if not years, that the early meetings in March were attended by Mr Aberdein and somebody from the civil service. Allegedly, it was precisely on those meetings that the identity of one of the complainants was revealed. So why are we only hearing Mr Salmond and Sturgeon talk when none of them were present at those meetings? Why aren’t we hearing directly from the two people present in those meetings? It is ridiculous that we are still at the starting point when the way to ascertain that information has been staring everybody in the face for so long.
It has been extensively published by the press that the meeting on 29th March was attended by Mr Aberdein, Nicola Sturgeon and a civil servant.
It has been published also and we have now the statement and declaration under oath from Mr Salmond of who was present in the meeting of 2 April 2018.
We know Mr Aberdein wrote a submission to the committee, presumably including his version of those events. Yet, Fabiani’s Farce has allowed itself to be bullied and blindfolded by Sturgeon’s government and the COPFS who may have abused their power to remove Mr Aberdein’s statement from the public domain and from the remit of the committee.
In line of this deliberate suppression of evidence by the COPFS, the next thing the committee should have done and could have done since a long time ago, is to drag to the committee and question under oath each and every one of those attendees to all those meetings. So why hasn’t this been done? is it because there is no real appetite from Fabiani’s Farce for the truth?
The questioning of this people should have been the very first thing that should have been done if Fabiani’s farce really wanted to clarify this matter and get to the bottom of it. Should they have done it and Nicola Sturgeon might have resigned long time ago and moved away from this ridiculous situation.
The only possible conclusion of the astonishing incompetence and time wasting displayed by Fabiani’s Farce pursuing the information and their laissez faire attitude allowing the COPFS to blindfold them to help them suppress evidence from the public, suggests the real remit of Fabiani’s Farce is not to expose the truth, but to hide it and to keep Sturgeon in power until May and deflect to stop the evidence that proves this woman breached the ministerial code ever reaching the public.
The other thing that should have been done is the questioning under oath the 23 people or so the ICO identified as having been at some point exposed to the information that was unlawfully leaked and ended in the press.
Looking at the events surrounding the death of Mr Carl Sargeant in Wales, it seems that the leak of his sacking, even before he was informed, was not directly from the Wales’ government to the press but rather to a PR agency. Couldn’t something similar have happened here?
There is only one explanation for Fabiani’s farce not to have assessed all these matters properly ALREADY and that is to help the power that be to purposely delay this charade to keep a corrupt, Westminster stooge in power for some hidden agenda that is not in the interests of taxpayers or the public at large.
So that’s *ANOTHER* lie Sturgeon has to her collection. Well, here is another. Sturgeon has previously claimed that Scotland was close to eliminating the virus but one of her own scientific advisers, Professor Mark Woolhouse from Edinburgh University Infectious Disease Unit, has stated that “We were not close to elimination in Scotland.”
Scummy hypocritical Tories are, as you would expect, jumping on the bandwagon with cries of how important it is that the First Minister gives us factual & accurate information every single time. And that she has to be “open & honest” or she runs the risk of compliance levels dropping & the virus spreading more widely in our communities due to a false narrative etc.
I no longer know whether to laugh or cry. On one hand it depresses me greatly that Sturgeon has turned out to be as bad as any Unionist. And her crap about near elimination, as i remember thinking at the time, was part of her MO to fool us all into an indyref being very close fake thought process. On the other hand she has removed all focus from scumbag Britnats and all the advantages we had over them. And they are getting away with pure lies and hypocrisy which pre-Sturgeon would have been hilarious.
Fair do’s Stu 🙂
Effijy says: 28 February, 2021 at 10:28 am
Domain names (what the full-stop separated part before the ‘/’ is) are case insensitive.
So upper-case and lower-case are equally valid; forcing an extra full-stop between U and K is a problem.
A Person says: 28 February, 2021 at 10:28 am
The same “double jeopardy” change occurred in England a few years ago, possibly before the change in Scotland. So people can be retried, and there was one famous case of that occurring shortly after the change. So new and compelling evidence, and I believe irrespective of the crime, and lead to a re-trial.
Despite the issues and occasional failed prosecutions, I still view that change as bad. The state should not get to have multiple bites at the cherry.
Liz says:
28 February, 2021 at 12:09 pm
Ruby, not everything is about you, love.
I told you I scrolled past all of them so didn’t notice your name.
But if you published all the alphabets with lurid detail then yes I am including you.
I mistrust the motives of anyone who felt that was necessary
Ruby replies
I did publish a list of all he charges ( copied & pasted from another poster ) so obviously it is about me, love.
What do you think the motives are of all the people who have published a list of all the charges? Why do you mistrust them.
.
Ruby,
You took the huff. You went. Now your back. How brave. But you came back not out of courage but because you have to complete your job placing this website in harm’s way under the Contempt of Court measures.
You are either a troll, a fool, an ignorant person or a Sturgeon plant.
To rebut your McWoke pity-me assertion of being the victim and my bullying you. Try responding to the facts I posted.
Ruby, notwithstanding the substantive issue of your likely being a Sturgeon plant, sent here to get Stuart implicated under Contempt of Court…
I made it QUITE CLEAR that this is Stuart Campbell’s website. It is not my site. It is not my job to moderate. God help Stuart Campbell, I’ve had to do some hard work in my life, but he has endure 10 years of this stress and idiots like you.
Ruby, when I see someone either being (i) willfully blind; (2) trolling; (3) monumentally stupid; and/or (4) a deliberate plant writing feckless lists detailing with prurient JIGSAW narrative about the ALPHABET WOMEN where you add little or no coherent comment, but you (and a few other newbies appearing here) do conveniently place this website and it’s owner in EXACTLY the same perilous legal position as Alex Salmond and Craig Murray, then I will speak up.
Which are you Ruby? Please don’t come back with “I am being bullied” crap. What do you think your pal Nicola has been doing to Alex Salmond and Craig Murray. This is about as serious as life gets. Some honourable people risking all and getting put away for life.
The reason I am so prickly is because I left a very good job with excellent career, pay and superannuated pension benefits because as a cop I loathed and detested with a passion bent cops. Two in particular. Both got their measure of justice for being corrupt, but the experience was putrid. One person died. The whole thing sickened me.
There are mercifully few bent cops, perhaps more corrupt lawyers. Definitely more dodgy politicians sadly.
It was the privilege of my life to witness some genuinely heroic individuals in the police. Now I see a chief constable today at Police Scotland who leaves me ashamed. He is not immune from the law. Others of his rank have had summary and solemn justice. He has a little time to redeem his reputation. To save the knighthood he expects. More on that later.
I would ask Wingers’ forgiveness if the earlier words offended any sensibilities. But Ruby is either naive or a Sturgeonite plant and she has EXPLICITLY LISTED THE ALPHABET WOMEN IN SUFFICIENT AND ACTIONABLE DETAIL already so as to meet the very low standard of the current Clown Office leadership consider sufficient to progress.
What I have witnessed Alex Salmond go through would have broken most human beings. Others such as Ambassador Murray are having a hellish time with the Scots law Sword of Damocles hanging over their necks. I hope that Craig Murray, like Alex Salmond, finds that there are still true, and I would say brave individuals in the legal establishment prepared to put their esteemed careers on the line by NOT submitting to the current banana republic leadership that passes for their de facto bosses, the joint and several Wolffe and Sturgeon enterprise.
Then we have the owner of this website. For 10 years he has gone through fifty shades of shit.
Most others would have packed this crap in by now. Stuart Campbell has been arrested, he has had his home invaded by a dubious search warrant and mob handed police in oppressive numbers.
He has tried to obtain legal remedy through court and suffered the mental anguish of that and the judgement that I PERSONALLY AND PROFESSIONALLY have never seen the likes of: to win a libel case only to have the other party let off as she is a drooling imbecile AND Stuart has the final insult of winning the case AND losing the fees. Having to pay Dugdale’s legal costs.
Not to mention almost universal abuse we have all watched Stuart endure. First, from rabid Unionists, then from the poor misguided sheep that follow Sturgeon’s McWoke cabal. Much of this as Stuart Campbell stand with another honourable man, Alex Salmond, to help save the former First Minister from false impropisonment.
Ruby, you have the aroma of a McWokeist about you. Your actions in using this thread as a “to do list” for yiur ditzy brained persona, featuring the Sturgeonite Kryptonite of the Alphabet Women is beyond the pale.
So before you heroically come back, PLEASE answer the above and not give the McWoke excuse about being bullied.
Ruby, you are not that stupid. You will have seen what happened to Alex Salmond, Craig Murray and to be on topic, the “horsehit” Stuart Campbell has already been through.
For your affectation of cerebral density, I will repeat: this website is possibly the last bastion of free speech that has the capacity to save the three pillars of Scottish institutions from imploding.
One last thing Ruby, I am NOT a moderator. Did yo not read the caveat in that respect. More ditzy willfully blindness from you. I am just anxious we don’t lose this website and require a fundraiser to get Stuart bail money because of your stupidity. So for your benefit, below is the actual quote from the owner of this website. Please reply to Stuart and not to me.
Better still please go comment elsewhere as I very much suspect you are one of Sturgeon’s plants and you have returned from going off in your McWoke style huff to do as you threatened: to keep adding more and more information about the Alphabet Women on here.
For anyone else, I apologise for the grumpiness. Some of us are on a similar journey to Grousebeater. Some of us still hope to be around long enough to manage what Sean Connery did not: to see Scotland free.
And yes, the Alphabet Women should be subject to fair treatment and fair post-Sturgeon government inquiry under anonymity. But not now. This is because of the FACT Nicola Sturgeon named or rather ranted about this website at an SNP NEC Zoom meeting and after that event she gave instructions to find ways to close down Wings Over Scotland and worse. Right now, her demands to find a way to shut this website down are being actioned.
——————————————
Ruby, just for you, here is what the ACTUAL SITE OWNER SAID towards the end of his article title: Hands Up If You Are Totally Corrupt…
9. 34AM 25th February 2021
Stuart Campbell says…
READERS: I have deleted a number of comments on this thread. I don’t believe any of them actually constituted contempt of court, but I’m extremely busy at the moment and would prefer not to have to monitor comments 24/7 just in case anyone carelessly (or indeed deliberately) commits jigsaw identification.
Please find somewhere else to conduct detailed discussion of these matters. Thank you.
Captain Yossarian @ 11:01 am
“a toxic public service in Scotland that we cannot trust. We cannot even trust the law in Scotland any more. That is the SNP’s fault.”
It is increasingly apparent that Scotland is managed as a colony by a meritocratic bourgeoisie that by and large has a culture, language and values reflective and supportive of the colonial power. Independence is decolonisation, after all, according to the UN.
Of course we cannot trust colonial institutions, for they are there to exploit and to plunder our resources, and to diminish and oppress our people. This is nothing new, it is merely becoming rather more obvious, post brexit, s.30 rejection, Salmond case etc etc.
The SNP needs a good clean out, but since the rot started at the top, and people at the top think the world stops moving without them, they’re all going to cling on for dear life.
Nicla, Sweinney, Murrel, Robertson, Alyn Smith.
Already there is a plan – hiding in plain sight – for the missing ring fenced money to be ‘explained away’. Well done Chapman – one man’s ‘forensic’ accountants is another man’s ‘creative.’ Still now we know not to trust him.
This next 4/5 years is crucial for the British state
– it must break Scotland in this time,
– it must alter the demographics,
– it must destroy Holyrood and the credibility of any Indy Party.
All those things are Number 1 priority on their to-do list, and they can now give it full attention now Brexit is done.
If there is a Holyrood election this year – the SNP must suffer a rowt.
The voters must clean house, or the SNP will limp on, in current corrupt manner for the next 20 years. Ever diminishing circles and the cuckoo in the nest.
The hope is that Alex will return to the fray and lead the Yes Movement to Indy.
I sincerely hope so.
But it might be a false hope, and we should be prepared for 2 things – that the ‘big news’ hinted at with regards Alex, is in fact another Judicial Review about the Holyrood Inquiry, and/or private prosecution for Contempt of Court/attempt to pervert course of justice with regards the failure to release documents under search warrant.
And the second is, if Alex stands again, to lead the Yes Movement – what will the Brit Nat state do? He’s already been subject to the most awful stitch up, and from the Brit Nat’s point of view – normally that is enough…
What will they do to him? Nothing good folks.
We need to be prepared, and we need our own agenda… Plebiscite Indy Election.
As the old saying goes, they can trample on the flowers, but they can’t stop spring.
ISP – If there are those in your leadership, advocating, ‘we need to build the party, we’re only standing on the list – we cannot win a Plebiscite Indy Election’, then you strongly need to start suspecting them of being UK sleepers. Plus there already is a gradualist party – the Sometime Never Party – perhaps they should go there.
You have 2 main points for people to vote for you (3 if you include just not being the SNP).
You stand only on the List – and if you don’t, if you change this to ‘both votes ISP’ you will be the biggest hippocrites in living memory.
And a vote for you is a vote for Plebiscite Indy. This must be front and foremost in your Manifesto – an apologetic wee byline saying, ‘wouldn’t that be nice, lets do that sometime’, and a petition (ffs) simply do not cut it.
And you/we/Scotland is running out of time.
I cautioned back in 2016, that if the ground that need to be covered to gain Indy, was not being covered by the SNP – then we seriously had to question why, and suspect infiltration/sabotage.
And then move beyond it and get the ground covered anyway.
England cannot afford to lose Scotland, Scotland is the cash cow, and England is bankrupt. It is that desperate.
The thing that stands between Scotland and her freedom, is the chance to vote for it.
In 2014 we had a country to win. Now we have a country to save.
Willie @ 11:46 am
“The new UK Government in Scotland civil service building in Scotland is I believe going to employ some 3,000 civil servants. Where do we think the majority of these civil servants will come from.”
It appears to be a colonial institution so I guess its personnel will correspond to that ethos.
As Fanon noted: “..the native is an alien in his own country under colonialism”.
@ Hammerdoon re timeline
I’ve written one (26 pages long). It has erred on the side of caution re jigsaw ID, but as extra precaution, not been posted btl here ‘just in case’.
If you can think of a way of providing me with an address, I’ll post it to you.
Al-Stuart
OMG you really have gone off on one!
You are ridiculous!
Would it not have been easier to politely advise posters of what Stuart Campbell said?
@ Ruby re, ‘What do you think the motives are of all the people who have published a list of all the charges? Why do you mistrust them.’
30 years in public life, every journalist in the UK knows there is a blank cheque for them if they ever get the scandal on Alex, particularly heightened during Indy Ref 1.
Anyone with experience of investigating sexual preditors (on whatever level, including harassment in the workplace) knows, that once the enquiry begins the skeletons come out the clauset, from every corner of their lives. Every place they’ve ever worked, every relationship they’ve ever had (they’re habitually unfaithful), every social circle they habit.
And it goes beyond that, birds of a feather, fly together. You won’t find Alex in Epstein’s wee black book.
So why do I mistrust the complainers in the AS trial, because every single one of them was either a Civil Servant, or a SPAD – AND CONTINUES TO BE.
Because most of the allegations were increadibly minor in nature – hair pulling for goodness sake, in a lift with others present. In what way is that even supposed to be sexual assault? Get real.
Because I’ve seen worse behaviour on pretty much every works night out.
Because one of the biggest Police teams, interviewed over 400 people and turned up so little. A trial in search of a crime.
Because the Jury, aquitted him in full, on every charge.
Well said Al-Stuart
I see Ruby is still demanding special attention that s/he is demanding a personal explanation of someone else’s opinion.
Definitely McWokish in character, me, me, me
Teflon Sturgeon thought she would get away with that one but she didn’t count on being called out on it.
Basically what the statement silliars called her out on is saying is the Jury found Salmond not guilty but the jury are wrong because she’s decided he’s guilty.
Then again her comments where not ment for those that have already picked which version of the ‘Truth’ they believe, they where ment to persuade the casual viewer/voter she has done nothing wrong.
Al-Stuart
Thank You
Have said the same myself on numerous answers on this blog.
We are true to our agenda and will not be defeated no matter where the shite comes from!!
Well, it’s great to hear Wings is busy.
He’s such a public spirited soul… people often miss that.
I bet he’s working on something right now that will help focus all our minds, including the minds of Nicola and the committee, on the issues that matter most, so that everyone is better prepared for the engagements of the week ahead.
Yes, Nicola can be public spirited too, to be fair, I don’t mind admitting that. The way she left that coronavirus meeting this week, for example, just to help the press prepare for Salmond’s appearance and reassure the nation was admirable.
We need more of that in politics. And there’s a role for in ordinary people too. I’d love to see the people who comment here get involved in that sort of thing over the next two days — get as much information out there as possible to help the public, the committee, and those appearing to give evidence, so that everyone is fully informed as to the key issues.
Liz says:
28 February, 2021 at 12:59 pm
Well said Al-Stuart
I see Ruby is still demanding special attention that s/he is demanding a personal explanation of someone else’s opinion.
Definitely McWokish in character, me, me, me
Ruby replies
LOL
When it comes to ‘special attention’ I am certainly getting it from Al-Stuart.
He’s written a mile long post all about me.
It’s a best laugh I’ve had this week!
You are also bringing a smile to my face Liz.
I’m beginning to wonder if you & Al are winding me up.
I’ve been framed haven’t I?
I believe Ruby is entitled as anyone else to post comments here, she often did before.
I also believe that whoever posts below the line should be open to legitimate criticism of what they write and in my opinion, the more debate the better.
I would hate for wings to turn into an echo chamber like other sites that I won’t mention, it’s imperative that we have healthy debate and we play the ball not the man or woman.
@ McDuff 11:07
I don’t think I could have been clearer – I believe Salmond is innocent, and that the sexual assaults he was accused of didn’t happen.
I was just pointing out the flaws in this article, of which there are many.
@ Sam at various times
In your scenario where a jury thinks there is 50% probability that the accused is guilty, which is below the standard of “beyond reasonable doubt”, the appropriate verdict would be Not Proven, rather than Not Guilty.
With one exception, that’s not the conclusion the majority came to, so – in my opinion as a non-lawyer – your argument does not hold water.
@ Sam at 2.33
How bizarre that you posted again while I was typing! 🙂
I still think you are wrong.
I see a lot of questions about the criminal trial and commenting on people questioning the jury’s verdict.
I wrote an article trying to explain: link to scotland.substack.com
link to witchesofscotland.com
You Wingers should just go to this.
NOW we are being taken over by men in dresses, frocks, lipstick, sanitary towels, cancer of the womb, ovary, breast (womens), all different because we are women and there is a shed load of crap denying our existence
Same auld, same auld.
JUST STEP UP FOR GOD SAKE
@crazycat
There is no difference between the not proven and not guilty verdicts in law. I agree – the use of the not guilty verdict rather than not proven implies that the jury did not believe that the crimes happened. But, it is just an implication, and we’re still just making our best guesses.
Also, have to be careful using that argument, because as you mention, one case – of “sexual assault with intent to rape” – was considered to be not proven. Craig Murray believed it was because that case was in a different category – something did happen and it was complained about at the time – although the story did seem to have grown arms and legs over the years.
Sam
There are no flaws Sam.
AS was found not guilty , in law that means he was innocent of the charges against him. End of.
If I’m wrong tell me where in law it says that he was not.
.
Ruby,
You are not a nice person.
You are a hypocrite. I replied in detail as YOU had written VERY LONG posts naming the ALPHABET WOMEN. Evidenced at 27 February, 2021 at 3:56 pm
At NO point have you taken the time nor effort to reply constructively to the harm you are putting this website into. As Liz quite rightly says, you have the aroma of a McWoke as it’s all about YOU.
A wordsearch of this thread shows up the name “Ruby” 75 times.
Basically hen, all you are saying is…
Me, me, me, me, Ruby is important, me, me, I, me, I, me.
Typical Sturgeonite McWoke.
Then you repeatedly drop the ALPHABET WOME into YOUR very LOOOONG posts.
I see you Ruby.
You have been rumbled hen.
.
The mask slips with the Sturgeonite McWokeists.
Who will be the first to go?
Bank Manager John Swinney’s safe pair of hands have been keeping an overly tight grip on the legal advice paperwork that was demanded by the Fabiani Inquiry.
Was it twice the Scottish Parliament VOTED to MAKE Nicola de la Broomstick pass over that legal advice?
With two Minority Government beating votes already, the odds are no’ good for poor old Long John Slither, the Deputy FM.
The Dastardly Dreghorn Dirker of the back shoulder blades will be shoving her endangered species, the Bald Beagle Fae Blairgowrie’s Weasel Emporium as he sacrificed under the wheels of Nicola’s favourite bus…
link to bbc.co.uk
I cannae figure out whether my favourite tune o’ the day is “The Wheels On Woke Bus Go Round & Bumpity Round” as the crunch the bones of another one of Stilleto Sturgeon’s #mefirst sacrificial Wokeist Cult followers
Or maybe that old favourite tune will suffice:“Yes We Have No Bananas” we have no bananas in this republic today.
Derek, I’m the last person in the world who’d criticise anyone for pedantry, so I’m quite happy to be put correct.
When you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice, you may know that your society is doomed
Ayn Rand
Jacqueline McMillan says:
28 February, 2021 at 3:56 pm
link to witchesofscotland.com
“You Wingers should just go to this.
NOW we are being taken over by men in dresses, frocks, lipstick, sanitary towels, cancer of the womb, ovary, breast (womens), all different because we are women and there is a shed load of crap denying our existence
Same auld, same auld.
JUST STEP UP FOR GOD SAKE”
========================================================
You will also surely burn or drown in 2021 if you support Scots Indy as well.
” Daisy Walker says:
28 February, 2021 at 12:56 pm
And it goes beyond that, birds of a feather, fly together. You won’t find Alex in Epstein’s wee black book.”
========================================================
You will find a Brit Royal in it though Daisy and he is still at large and hasn’t been anywhere near a Court. Yet I can live in hope?????
.
Derek Morrison,
Seeing as it was you that dropped your wee pal Ruby the Stooge in the brown stuff, you have a big cloud of suspicion above your head.
This isnae about cliques, clubs or entrance exams you snarky arse. It is about Contempt of Court charges that a pointless ned like you are trying to drop the owner of this website into.
Well “Derek” or whatever your real name is, a wee word to the wise, just as Nicola has found out, when you play with matches, you get burnt fingers. It is YOU who have risked yourself in Contempt of Court proceedings.
Derek Morrison, you are either thick as mince posting lurid lists of the ALPHABET WOMEN onto this website or you are one of the closet Sturgeonites who sneak in, under peoples’ radar and try and get their websites closed down.
Given the fact that Stuart Campbell is taking a couple of well deserved days off and has already said he is unable to police these BTL sections 24/7 then some folk need to have his back and make sure Sturgeonite McWankers like you don’t land him in the same court as your ilk put Craig Murray into.
Morrison, for your poisonous postings above that fool nobody but the dim Rubes, you can see the quote from the site owner that you have clearly IGNORED or are too pig ignorant to have read in the first place. I merely leave it there so Sturgeonites and turncoats such as you don’t rant about people who care about this website and it’s owner.
Now away back to your day job as CosyFeet’s gimp-boy.
One last thing Dodgy Derek, as well you know, I never claimed to moderate any input. I just want to help safeguard Stuart Campbell’s back from insidious cretins such as you cramming actionable Contempt material YOU upload onto his site when he is busy elsewhere. So please reply to Stuart and not to me about whether you are stupid or a Sturgeonite plant, or both.
——————————————
For excrement stirrers such as creepy Derek Morrison and his apprentice Contempt of Court evidence planter Ruby Roaster, here is what the ACTUAL SITE OWNER WROTE towards the end of his article title: Hands Up If You Are Totally Corrupt…
9.34AM 25th February 2021
Stuart Campbell says…
READERS: I have deleted a number of comments on this thread. I don’t believe any of them actually constituted contempt of court, but I’m extremely busy at the moment and would prefer not to have to monitor comments 24/7 just in case anyone carelessly (or indeed deliberately) commits jigsaw identification.
Please find somewhere else to conduct detailed discussion of these matters. Thank you.
Al-Stewarrt
Can I suggest you watch Alex Salmond’s 6 hours of dignified, statesmanlike evidence to the Holyrood Committee last Friday as an example of how to put across your case?
Repeated offensive, foul-mouthed, insinuations and ill-informed ranting is not in my experience the most productive way to construct an argument.
Your rude and aggressive manner can only discourage other people from using this forum for sensible debate – and serve to substantiate the case of those who believe we ARE ‘too wee and too stupid’
Al-Stuart says:
A wordsearch of this thread shows up the name “Ruby” 75 times.
Ruby Roaster replies
LOL
‘Comical Al’ you are a hoot!
I’ve done a wordsearch of your posts Al and the name “Ruby” shows up 69 times! You seem to be all about ‘Ruby, Ruby, Ruby, Ruby’
Although
Derek, Derek, Derek, Derek, D E R E K
might be catching up.
Two favourites at the Karaoke.
I like both these tunes.
Big Hugz & Lots of Love
xxx Ruby Roaster
PS Looking forward to your next post.
To Comical Al with love
link to tinyurl.com
link to tinyurl.com
Get out your hairbrush & start practicing for the karaoke.
Good Luck
Big Hugz
“Ruby the Stooge”
Breastplate says:
28 February, 2021 at 2:00 pm
I believe Ruby is entitled as anyone else to post comments here, she often did before.
Ruby replies
Thank you Breastplate. Your support is much appreciated.
Hey Ruby
Thanks for the laugh!
We needed a sanity-break on here?
link to tinyurl.com
Derek M Morison
🙂