I have long deplored the ever burgeoning number of party political hacks – of every political party – which the poor long suffering taxpayer has to stump up for. I recommend the excellent book The Triumph of the Political Class by Peter Oborne, on this and other subjects. There is an ever increasing rise in the number of SPADS. In addition, the offices of members of various parliaments are comfortably staffed both at parliament and in the constituency. Various individuals and groupings have taxpayer-funded but party appointed “Chiefs of Staff”. I have always viewed “Short money” as a constitutional abomination – the state, the poor taxpayer, should not be paying for political party machines. If the members of a party, any party, wish to try to impress their views on voters and to establish themselves in lucrative office, then the party members should fund their activity themselves. The Short money system pays for party HQ staff and machinery according to electoral success, and thus helps cement the establishment. Furthermore, there can be friction between taxpayer funded party appointees and the civil servants they work with – when I worked within the FCO, we career civil servants found SPADs an ill-informed nuisance. Plus the political patronage system can be open to abuse – remarkably, two SNP political appointees on the books of the Scottish civil service, paid for by the Scottish taxpayer, have recently without changing jobs been bumped up two whole pay grades on their taxpayer funded salary, a happening unavailable to ordinary civil servants.
Yesterday saw the continuation of the prosecution case in the Alex Salmond trial. As always, I have to write with extreme care for fear of being found in contempt of court.
The BBC is permitted to be highly selective on the aspects of the evidence it reports. Sarah Smith has been telling the camera with great emotion that an accuser referenced the Harvey Weinstein case, and has been stating with a voice full of angst that the “victim” said she did not want any of this, and swore that it is all true. Sarah Smith has done this without offering any substantial account at all of the defence’s cross examination of said witness. Sarah Smith is in no danger whatsoever of being found in contempt of court for a broadcast that reaches millions of people and is deliberately, professionally and competently designed to sway the viewers emotionally into a view of the case hostile to Alex Salmond. By contrast I, to a smaller audience, am writing with extreme circumspection, knowing the state will prosecute and probably jail me in a flash if I get one nuance wrong. So I am dependent on you reading this whole article with intelligence, and thinking “I wonder why he just told me that bit? Where was that relevant?”
It is essential to an understanding of this case, and not so far in any dispute, being fully brought out by the direct evidence of Ms A, Ms C and Ms H, that six of the accusers conferred (and I carefully used a neutral verb there) together over their accusations. Ms A yesterday denied a suggestion from the defence that she was thus involved in encouraging the accusations. We also know from Ms H’s evidence that at least two of the accusers were actively involved with SNP HQ in a plan to “sit on” the accusations until it was time to “deploy them” “if needed”, and that meant to stop Alex Salmond coming back into politics by refusing him vetting as an SNP candidate.
So it is extremely important for you to be aware that none of these accusers to date (up to end day 3) has been a career civil servant. CENSORED PENDING CONTEMPT OF COURT TRIAL There is, in my belief, a deliberate attempt at false portrayal in the media to pass some accusers off as career civil servants in order to give an undeserved aura of impartiality and trustworthiness. Which is not in the least to allege the accusers are not trustworthy persons, just to say their trustworthiness is not avouched by career civil service status. Some future accusers to be called may well be genuine civil servants. It is an important distinction; not for the purposes of the trial – it makes no difference to the jury or the facts of the case – but to the wider political ramifications.
Anyway, for a report on yesterday’s evidence from important SNP politicians and apparatchiks, I refer again to Grouse Beater. Today I am going to lift a section of his report wholesale, for which I trust he will forgive me:
d. Next witness is a complainer, Woman A, so court being cleared again. Alex Salmond is accused of indecently assaulting her and sexually assaulting her. Woman A tells the court she was working for the SNP in 2008 when Alex Salmond’s behaviour caused her concern. He says he would go in as if to kiss her cheek but then give her a “sloppy and kind of unpleasant” kiss on the lips. Woman A also says “at times he would put his hand on my back and move his hands so they were on the side of my chest or on my bum”. “I took the view it was deliberately…there was no need for his hand to be there, it wasn’t something you would have done by accident.” Did Woman A encourage Alex Salmond to kiss or touch her? “Not at all.” Did she want it to happen? “Absolutely not.” Did she voice disapproval? “I didn’t know how to say ‘don’t do this’ to the first minister, but I would move, I actually began to carry a bag so it was between us”. Why didn’t Woman A tell Alex Salmond to stop? “I liked my job,” she says. “He was the most powerful man in the country….I had experienced volatile mood swings and behaviour from him and it was always easier to move away then risk infuriating or antagonising him.” Did Woman A tell anyone? “I was embarrassed, I was doing this job which meant a lot to me and him humiliating me on a regular basis was embarrassing. I didn’t want to tell people he was doing this….it would make me look weak.”
Lunch adjournment
e. Woman A tells court that Alex Salmond touched her at a party; running his hands down over “the curve of my body” while saying “you look good, you’ve lost weight”. She says she was “kind of internally shocked” and kept her distance from him for the rest of the night. Alex Prentice asks Woman A if she consented to anything Alex Salmond is said to have done to her? “Never”. Did she give a signal of consent? “No”. Prosecution finished with witness, now Gordon Jackson will cross examine.
f. Gordon Jackson says Alex Salmond kissed other people on the lips; “what he did to you was the same he did to members of the public – that’s the sort of man he was”. Woman A says she doesn’t remember seeing Alex Salmond holding other women by the shoulders. Jackson says “these events such as they were are absolutely nothing, and were not distressing in any way or form”. He says they have “turned into criminality” due to “revisionism because other things happened since”. Woman A says that’s “categorically wrong”. Jackson asking why she didn’t later disclose the alleged incidents; Woman A says she had “put them behind me” and “moved on”. Woman A says “I didn’t want to be drawn into a world where I was dealing with my complaint against Alex Salmond….until the police came to see me I was content not to be part of this.” On the incident where Woman A says Alex Salmond ran his hands over her and said she had lost weight, Jackson says “you call that groping?” “Yes,” she replies. He had contended that “nothing happened”; Woman A says “Mr Salmond assaulted me – that’s not nothing”. Asking about Woman A’s contact with other complainers. She says she contacted others off the back of the Daily Record story, saying she thought it “would be difficult for people to handle”, she wanted to “check they were okay”. She says she also reached out to men. Jackson says Woman A was “very much a part of encouraging people to make a complaint, and make things that were trivial, nothing, turned into criminal charges”. Woman A says “I was not encouraging people to make a complaint.”
g. Next witness is Woman C – an SNP politician. Alex Salmond is accused of sexually assaulting her. Woman C says she was celebrating after a Holyrood budget vote, at a restaurant. Alex Salmond offered her a lift to Waverley Station in his ministerial car afterwards to catch a train, she says. Woman C says Alex Salmond put his hand on her leg, above the knee, and kept it there for “a large proportion of the journey”. Did she invite him to do this? “Absolutely not”. She was “embarrassed” and “just hoped it would stop”. Asked why she didn’t say something or call for help, Woman C says “it was so surreally [sic] awful that I didn’t want to say anything, I was just really embarrassed by it and presumed he would stop quite soon because it was so not the right thing to do.”
h. Shelagh McCall cross examining now. She puts it to Woman C that Alex Salmond “says he never touched your leg”. Woman C replies that “I wish it wasn’t the case, so I wouldn’t be here today.” Asking Woman C about whether she felt under pressure from Woman A to speak to the police. She says she didn’t feel pressure to give a statement; she only wanted to speak about things when she wanted to, but “people were talking about this”. Asking if this was a trivial incident? Woman C says “it was something done by my first minister and leader – it was something you put to one side, because who on earth are you going to tell about something like that?” Asked if she thought alleged incident a sexual assault, Woman C says “it was entirely inappropriate and wrong”. “I suppose when you look back you realise how much you excuse a person because of who they are.”
The Ms A incident, if for the moment we take her account as true, raises some very serious questions. Sexual assault is rightly an extremely serious matter, carrying heavy penalties. When does contact over clothing, not with an erogenous zone, become sexual assault?
It is important to emphasise that the defence do not accept Ms A’s account, but the judge’s direction to the jury on this point is going to be extremely interesting. The jury determine fact, but on the point of law they should be guided by the judge.
Pizza Express are getting a lot of very peculiar publicity. The dinner from which Alex Salmond gave Ms C a lift to Waverley Station was at Pizza Express Holyrood. No evidence so far that Prince Andrew was at the next table. As the defence pointed out to Ms C, it’s about a quarter of a mile to drive. (This is true, I used to live next door, and I could dash it on foot in six minutes to catch a train).
Woman C says Alex Salmond put his hand on her leg, above the knee, and kept it there for “a large proportion of the journey”. Did she invite him to do this? “Absolutely not”. She was “embarrassed” and “just hoped it would stop”. Asked why she didn’t say something or call for help, Woman C says “it was so surreally awful that I didn’t want to say anything, I was just really embarrassed by it and presumed he would stop quite soon because it was so not the right thing to do.”
The defence also pointed out that the limousine in question had a large fixed armrest between the two back passengers which would make the surreptitious or casual placing of a hand difficult. None of these defence points appear to have found their way into mainstream media.
But the two most important facts of the day seem – as you would expect – to be missed entirely by the mainstream media.
They are brought out by the excellent report by James Doleman in Byline Times. The first is that Ms C admitted to being a member of a WhatsApp group that had been “discussing” the allegations against Salmond. I use the verb “discussing” used by James Doleman and presumably used in court. Other verbs are available.
Secondly, Ms C said she had come forward in response to an “unsolicited email” by a police officer. I have previously reported on the massive fishing expedition conducted by Police Scotland against Alex Salmond in the context of the civil case he won against the Scottish government for the unfair and biased process conducted against him.
The court remains closed to the public when the accusers give evidence, which is over 90% of the trial so far. I have reapplied for accreditation as media, now as the newly appointed Political Editor of an established media organisation, Black Isle Journalism Ltd, which meets the required criteria. I await a response.
With grateful thanks to those who donated or subscribed to make this reporting possible.
This article is entirely free to reproduce and publish, including in translation, and I very much hope people will do so actively. Truth shall set us free.
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Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
I make this case Plan C. Plan A was the plan to debar AS from candidacy for the SNP and probably suspend/expel him from membership the way they did Michelle Thomson and others on the basis of unproven,unfounded allegations.. Plan B was using the civil service ministerial code to go through a spurious “independent complaints” process to destroy his reputation. This evil brew has been stirring for a long time.
You may find that a lot of what Grousebeater writes actually originate from twitter account of Philip Sim, BBC Scotland.
https://twitter.com/BBCPhilipSim
SA
It may well do so but a large percentage of the population in Scotland will make up its mind based on the BBC Reporting Scotland and STV news which have been highly selective/biased in what they have reported – not the twitter reporting from Sim or anyone else.
I really do not see how this is not contempt of court by these media organisations
BBC Reporting Scotland and STV News is the ‘daily digest’ for the jury. It marshals together the conflicting information that they have heard during the day and sums it up for them. We all know what the ‘take home’ impression is though 😉
I infer that you have never served on a jury. That is absolutely not how they work. Jurors sit for several hours a day listening to evidence, interspersed with periods when they are sitting in their room probably not talking to each other much at all, when the judge has sent them out because there is an application to be heard, or something the judge wants to ask or tell counsel, in their absence. YOU may perhaps listen avidly to those news programmes to get your daily diges and fume at how biased you think it is. The jurors have probably had enough of the case sitting in the courthouse all day long. I don’t know why you think jurors are so stupid as to want a “digest” from their TV sets after they have actually sat in the courtroom hearing the real evidence directly and not interpreted by intermediaries.
This. Having served on a High Court jury for almost a month in a rape trial with multiple defendants and multiple complainers, I can assure you that going to the MSM/TV to work out what happened is very unlikely.
I also found that my fellow jurors, who came from a wide range of backgrounds, all took their responsibilities very seriously, and when we came to discuss our verdicts, the evidence was given a full airing.
And when they sit in their room, often it is as boring as hell because they don’t know whether they will be called back in 10 minutes or 2 hours.
N
Unusually, I agree with your post. The TV reports are to manipulate the court of public opinion so that whether a jury find him guilty, not proven or not guilty the court of public opinion will have marked his card – assuming they haven’t already.
Cubby
As far as the verdict is concerned what the majority of viewers think is immaterial.
Take heart- the nine female jury members may be more hard headed than you think
They will tire of this ‘I just froze’ line and see right through it. Not all women are snowflakes.
Most women know the difference between rape and sexual assault and unwanted hugs and kisses and how to deal with them appropriately.
Also remember they will also be thinking of their own husbands and sons who could find themselves in the same position.
In my opinion the Prosecution side have totally, totally overplayed their hand and it just might backfire with the jury.
“Woman C that Alex Salmond “says he never touched your leg” – that is a very interesting comment, at least from a legal perspective. Alex Salmond has never never denied, at least on the public record or in open court to touching anyone’s leg. Is a QC allowed to put what Alex Salmond says to the court via proxy? Can this be read into that Alex Salmond will not give evidence?
Barney – no, it’s quite normal. There will probably be sworn statements from police interview before the court. It is no indication whether he will give evidence in person.
Where an alternate factual scenario is to be set out, the witness for the other side must be ‘challenged’ as to his account.
It is normal. Your side is going to say something that conflicts with what the other side’s witness is saying, so you put it to the witness in cross-examination before they’ve been stood down. I would imagine it would come from a witness statement that AS has made to the instructing solicitor. Police interview statements aren’t sworn. The police aren’t authorised to administer oaths.
Witnesses often contradict what they said to the police, once they get on the stand. The judge should be very clear that it is what is said on the stand that counts – a police statement, whilst of interest, is secondary.
The procedure as I understood it when such a contradiction is apparent, is for the written statement/evidence to be put to scrutiny. It’s a long and tedious process in which each sentence or meaningfully complete phrase is read to the witness followed by the question ” is that true?”
Margaret, what they “said to the police” is usually a subjective fabrication and should be classed as hearsay.
PC whoever writes down what he wants the witness or accused to say then persuades them to sign.
Place a half competent lawyer in the room to clarify what was actually said and there is effectively no statement.
Add an over enthusiastic prosecutor who watches too much television to the mix and reality exceeds the bounds of credibility.
No. Jury members are told at the start of a trial that it is what the witnesses say that counts, not the lawyers.
You are correct, Margaret. Otherwise, an accused person could put forward the points they wanted to make without the risk of exposing themselves to cross-examination by the Crown.
Witnesses shouldn’t make “points”. It’s statements “I saw this, heard that, felt the other, and having reasoned ABC because I believed DEF I therefore did X” that they get cross-examined on. Notice that they can give evidence about their state of mind or beliefs at the time of the events they are describing if such information is relevant, for example as an explanation of why they did something.
The defence is entitled to make “points” in its closing speech and to a more limited extent in cross-examination regardless of whether the defendant gives evidence or not.
Agree, it’s not about ‘scoring points’. It’s a court of law we are talking about, not a discussion forum or debating society.
Re the ministerial car journey from the Holyrood branch of Pizza Express to Waverley Station, James Doleman’s account makes it clear that Woman C’s husband was in the car too. This was omitted from other accounts and is surely an important detail. Of course the driver of the ministerial car was also present. The Radio Clyde report has Woman C specifying that it was Mr Salmond’s left hand.
That would be very strange if it was his left hand. There is a strict protocol in official vehicles that the principal whose official vehicle it is sits not behind the driver. I got a huge bollocking over this once when I sat in a minister’s place in ignorance when in the FCO when accompanying him to a meeting.
It’s here. https://twitter.com/RadioClydeNews/status/1237763672426139651?s=20
I would assume it was standard for a principal not to sit directly behind the driver — no need when there’s plenty of space, but then Woman C and her husband need to be accommodated.
He did however sit behind the driver when photographed in the aftermath of the independence referendum. I have no idea if that was a one off incident.
I find it strange that the other two people in the car didn’t notice anything unusual. if you’ve ever sat in the back of a big car with armrests down the middle, you would have to make an ostentatious move from the normal sitting position to right up against the arm rest to be able to touch the other person in the back, even more so if that person moved closer to the window and away from the middle. The driver at least would get a very good view of what was happening in the rear view mirror. I’ve sat in one of these types of cars when being the bag carrier for the chairman of an organisation I worked for and can assure you that the amount of space per person is quite large compared to your average family car, never mind the centre arm rest.
Oh, aye. I might mention that, if you maintained the normal sitting position, you would have to have abnormally long arms to reach the person on the other side. Now AS doesn’t appear to have really long arms – in fact, quite the opposite.
Margaret
His nickname is “wee eck” of course not Captain Fantastic.
But were the armrests down? Besides, someone prone to this behaviour would likely be in the habit of placing the armrest in the up position? Then you may have witnesses to that effect. You would expect this sort of thing to be covered in court though.
From the OP:
“The defence also pointed out that the limousine in question had a large fixed armrest between the two back passengers…..”
What about placing your arm under the arm rests? That would be less inconspicuous and a large armrest would provide ‘cover’. Placing your arm over a large armrest would look too obvious. You would need to look at the layout of the car to have a better look.
Suffice to say larger cars have much larger seats more distance between the occupants. Also the legroom is much more generous. And, again, it is not like the QCs haven’t already thought of this.
Will the driver be called to give evidence for the defence?
As an aside, I should mention that my experience on a jury is that there is no rhyme or reason to the order in which witnesses are called.
Barney
Salmond is Captain Fantastic?????
Ps it’s a limousine.
“Stretch Armstrong” surely.
Further, if AS sat.behind the driver, with Ms. C sitting next to him ,I presume , with her husband sitting up front.
If this hand on knees ever had happened, it would not have gone amiss to the driver, whose regular view into the rearview mirror would have made this non stop knee touch visible. Any turning of the head by driver or husband would have made such a move obvious.
In the interest of evidence, both husband and driver should give answers to what they did during this short drive, did they turn around or look into the rear mirror, did they look ahead stoically??
If the driver never looked in the rear view mirror he should not be driving. You are supposed to check the rear view mirror like every six seconds. Rear view mirrors should really be set up to observe the road behind not the passengers in the back. And tilted to observe a passenger’s knee? Well, the length of a limousine affects things. You would have to look in a limousine’s rear view mirror to know for sure. And back to the armrest. If someone was in the habit of always placing it in an upright position, if it wasn’t already and then always leaving it there when exiting the car some observant person or persons may pick up on this habit.
Barney @17:22
With respect. “The defence also pointed out that the limousine in question had a large fixed armrest between the two back passengers which would make the surreptitious or casual placing of a hand difficult.”
A rear view mirror should be angled to do just that. i.e. provide a view of the area behind the vehicle. NOT to view the rear passenger area.
Of course, I realise they can be adjusted to personal preference.
Imagine the driver giving evidence to the effect that he had the rear view mirror tilted so that he could observe women’s knee area. That would come across as kind of, well…
What should someone expect from a judicial system that is really part of the state machinery? The UK judicial system is dependant in many cases on Her Majesty’s prosecution service backed by the might of the state. When a political party takes over the role of being HMG then it acquires all the trappings of power of the state. The political party, and the individuals behind that party acquire real power. This is more so the case when that party has won a ‘landslide’ election. The problem of course is compounded by the extremely loaded FPTP election system which means that more often than not a party attracting less than 50% of the votes has a huge mandate over decisions that also include sweeping changes in the law. The problem is compounded by the lack of a proper constitution. What happens if Boris Johnson, or even the unelected Cummings decides to pass a law annulling habeas corpus?
The state has unlimited resources to pursue successful prosecutions, money resources, legal resources, power over authorization of media with a blackmail like effect now being witnessed by how the BBC, which acted as a lackey to the Tories during the election, and is now being even more cowed. Laura Kuensberg has now become the official mouthpiece and justifier general for Tory policy, even portraying the budget as a major turn for the Tories to be the People’s party.
It is therefore no surprise that legal means are used to silence those who will threaten the fabric of the realm.
Politics has become a career move to get into the circle of the powerful and the rich who in turn now run politics, political parties and policy. The rot is deeply ingrained and such cases as the current one show how all powers of opposition can be directed and dissipated into such cases which matter very much to the individuals concerned but that fulfil their aim whether HMG prosecutor wins or looses.
I’m currently reading the book: ‘1938 Hitler’s Gamble’ by Giles MacDonogh; the parallels between the British state’s present relationship with the judiciary and media (in some cases the public too) and Germany’s during that period are alarmingly clear.
Either like minds plot similarly, or bodies are taking the history of pre war Germany as a ‘How to…’ manual.
I’d recommend it, an interesting read.
What’s the “UK” criminal justice system? Never heard of it.
I totally agree with your comments about the TV coverage/ reporting. Shameful and deliberate bias – but this is just par for the course in Scotland.
“None of these defence points seem to have found their way into mainstream media” – all except the “consensus defence”of the defence points are being totally ignored by the mainstream broadcast media in Scotland but they have time in their short reports to continually repeat the complainants charges. There is no doubt the media is biased and corrupt but is the judicial system – I hope not – but if the court was open to the public it would be seen to be above reproach – as it should be. The jurors are hearing and seeing all the evidence/arguments but the wider jury – the Scottish public are not – shameful.
I am not having a go at the Grousebeater coverage but his report is not clear who was in the car/ limousine with Salmond and Woman C – “the hand on the knee” – another report says ( from the court testimony ) woman C’s husband was in the front seat with Salmonds driver. Cross checking different reports tends IMO not to show inconsistencies or lies but rather omissions of information that may change people’s perception. It is obviously not easy to record manually each and every detail/word of testimonies but hopefully if Craig gets access we will have reporting that will be more consistently accurate.
“So I am depending on you reading the whole article with intelligence” – good luck with that request. Some don’t even seem to have read your previous articles on this subject never mind apply intelligence.
Perhaps short money should be provided in proportion to the number of full paying members a party has and be made conditional upon internal party constitutions meeting certain minimum standards of democracy such as one member, one vote and policies being determined democratically by the entire membership rather than by an inner circle or by sponsors?
In parallel, party subscriptions, donations etc should be limited to a nominal amount per member per year with donations being restricted to eligible voters that are liable to pay tax in the UK. Just as there should be no taxation without representation, there should be no representation for anyone who is not resident in the UK and liable to pay taxes here. Political donations by businesses and other groups should be outright banned. Only eligible individuals should be allowed to donate.
If these reforms were enacted along with a proportional representation system, perhaps something closer to democracy could be established in the UK. It will never happen however, at least not in the foreseeable future, because too many people have a tribal loyalty to one half or the other of a political duopoly that has controlled British politics for many generations. Turkeys demonstrably do vote for Christmas. Corporate media brainwashing demonstrably works, especially in a country where a first-past-the-post electoral system virtually guarantees the continuation of a political duopoly.
Looks like Pizza Express is about a minute’s walk from the outside of Weatherly:
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Pizza+Express,+North+Bridge,+Edinburgh/Waverley+Railway+Station,+Edinburgh+EH1+1BB/@55.9512723,-3.1906997
If you don’t want to risk getting touched across an armrest for a large proportion of 1 minute you might think walking would be safer and quicker?
Craig said hey were at the Holyrood Rd pizza express, not quite as close, but still close…
Wrong Pizza Express!
https://goo.gl/maps/oMKYBRc3AnSyLqcm8
That map shows a very round about way to get from Holyrood Road to Waverley.
I would think going through the park at Dynamic Earth past the Parliament then up the Royal Mile to St Marys Street or up Calton Road to New Street would be better.
Although at 11pm the roads are very quiet.
The Cowgate closes at around 10pm not sure if you can get up Blackfriars Street after 10pm.
I was going to suggest taxi drivers would know best but then
Taxis & buses can turn right at St. Mary’s Street.
The ‘evidence’ and comments as well, posted here had me laughing out loud!
A mature woman cannot tell her boss that she is resigning?
Instead goes on jollies with him?
Everyone, grow up.
Which part of ” large fixed armrest” is not computing for Barney, I wonder?.
As Craig said, do read carefully before commenting.
Yes. That was the point I tried to make, although quite clumsily. The sorts of limos used by ministers and senior business executives aren’t like your average family car. The seats in the back are much more spacious, the back is designed to carry two people at most, you cannot easily or even legally get a third person in – 1) there are usually only two seatbelts, and 2) the arm rest is fixed down the middle of the seat. The extra space helps the person in the back work on papers, etc, which wouldn’t be easy in a family car.
Watch the next time you see on TV a ministerial limo arriving at Bute House or Downing Street.
I falsely assumed that a limousine would come with moveable armrests and a heated rear window as standard. My bad. Maybe it was the ‘special edition’. I wonder if the glove box came with a flap. It reminds me of the Boeing 737 Max scandal when it was revealed that an indicator light to warn of an imminent crash was an ‘optional extra’.
Great work
Omission, exaggeration and conflation are preferable to outright fabrication. On day one, Woman H self described as a “soft supporter of Independence” and “not very party political”. From the limited reporting it is not possible to tell whether this position was challenged by the Defence. Would challenging this assertion fall foul of maintaining anonymity?
On day one, Woman H also stated that when resisting an assault she reasoned “I have a boyfriend.”. This sentence jarrs. Now, if Woman H had actually said “I have a boyfriend NOW.”, that has a more natural scan to it. Sure enough on day two Defence puts the assertion to Woman H that there had indeed been a previous, consensual, drunken fumble.
These witnesses are too clever by half.
Curious that collateral evidence is inadmissible, yet the Defence is repeatedly allowed to raise the prior communication between the witnesses without admonishment from the Judge.
Prior communication can challenge Moorov. It can form part of a legal argument that the jury will not get to hear and can be presented by Defence at the close of the Crown case
Particularly when you consider the first witnesses text message to other complainants “I have a plan” – all in all, quite a strange comment to make.
But it then depends on the judge’s direction to the jury whether she feels the defence’s argument has merit. I suspect she will cover as many legal bases as possible in her direction, with an eye on possible appeal.
In law it matters not one jot if there had been even multiple previous consensual encounters stretching back for decades if a subsequent encounter was non-consensual. Consent has to be given on each and every occasion. A QC would no doubt twist it around to make out that because someone had had previous consensual sexual encounters with someone that they then felt ‘entitled’ and ‘decided to just take it’. Arguments like these are played out in the courts day-in, day-out.
Surely the fact of prior engagement indicates a reasonable expectation of consent, unless consent is expressly withdrawn.
I mean, if you’re both at it a bit how does one know on this occasion consent is being withheld.
The evidence from the complainants seems to me to read as if they quietly suffered their ordeal, hoping all the while to find some opportunity to escape.
This is a reasonable explanation of this kind of predicament.
Women have been using such means of dealing with gropey bosses for eons.
But still, if previously you’d accepted your boss’s advances, how’s he supposed to know that this time you’re rejecting, if you don’t firmly indicate so.
There is no ‘reasonable expectation of consent’ under any circumstances. Good grief! That is like straight to jail thinking. Consent can also be withdrawn at any time; after consent has been given; or mid-act. Consent to one act does not mean consent to another act.
Yeah, yeah, know what you mean.
But it’s not quite as bad as that in Law itself.
Whatever about the state of trial by Media.
But that IS the Law. The Law that Salmond is being tried under. In other jurisdictions, which is most since most countries don’t apply the consent law, there would have to be evidence of the complainers “resisting, resisting and continue to resist” for there to be any chance of a conviction. In other jurisdictions there would need to be a dozen male witnesses. In these same jurisdictions a word of a woman having no weight in court so there wouldn’t even be a trial in the first place. Consent and how it is defined also varies; for example in Australia there are many variants between the different States. It is all by the by and academic since Salmond is being tried under Scottish Criminal Law as it stands at present.
Iceland has gone further. Up there consent won’t cut it – it has to be ‘enthusiastic consent’.
In a kinda roundabout way these feminists might get us all back to the natural order.
When the Scottish consent law was being brought in consent was described as ‘free agreement’.
I do not see any reason why in a case like this with the public excluded for the most part and a significant percentage of the populace in Scotland having no trust in the media a daily court transcript is not issued – like Hansard. Justice should be seen (or read) to be done by the public in all cases.
Also surely some of the complainants must realise that their own testimonies will give a lot of people a number of clues to their identities. I will not give examples for obvious reasons.
“I have reapplied for accreditation as media, now as the newly appointed Political Editor of an established media organisation, Black Isle Journalism Ltd, which meets the required criteria. I await a response”.
Good for you! However I suspect that administrative difficulties may delay your admission until just after the end of the present trial.
The longer this goes on, the more I seem to hear the dulcet tones of Sir Humphrey Appleby murmuring in the background.
So far we’ve heard from 5 of the 10 women and all have been SNP insiders. Not civil servants outwith the party.
The armrest business… well, remember Salmond is Octoman with eight arms as yesterday we heard he pinned H against the wall whilst simultaneously removing her clothes and his whilst all the time holding a bottle of wine given by the Chinese ambassador.
And it’s supposed to be women who are the multi taskers! 🙂
Has the prosecution got a full set of witnesses identified by letters A – Z?
Now Witness F –
Alex Salmond trial: Woman says former first minister ‘apologised’ for behaviour
8 minutes ago
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-51853134
(Unattributed)
Witness F said “Our job involved protecting the first minister and his reputation, and. … anything that took that incident into the public sphere risked influencing the outcome of the referendum.”. So definitely not a career Civil servant then, yet another SPAD.
What’s the deal with all the free booze from China? If the witnesses were concocting their accounts as a collective effort (and I wouldn’t for a moment suggest such), you’d think they’d show a bit more variety.
Yes and talking about having “ a shot” of wine (one witness) and “a shot” of limoncello (another witness).
I’ve had glasses of both wine and limoncello – but never would call them “shots”
Tequila etc yes
Jars a bit?
These witnesses are too clever by half. They’ve unwittingly announced their collusion in the repetition of odd phrasing and unnecessarily detailed recollection of obscure detail.
I have just complained to the bbc about biased and abysmal court reporting.
I shall publish their response if there is one.
Never mind
BBC Reporting Scotland this lunchtime
Your complaint may have had an immediate affect: –
“and what happened when she was cross examined by the defence” – the question by the news announcer to the reporter in Edinburgh at the court. Now this question was never asked in any of the previous days – so why the change is it because Nevermind complains – no don’t be silly it is because in this instance the cross examination is one with some details they are happy to air publicly.
Women F the civil servant is not new infomation as it was covered in the Judicial review court case that Salmond won.
The BBC – a truly disgusting arm of the British state.
The news reports for every day of this trial so far show the exact same footage of Salmond entering a court and gesturing with his hand for two women to go on ahead. Now, in any other reports they always show you separately filmed footage of the accused arriving on each day. It is very subtle and devious.
This case is odd. A touch of the leg here, a hand on the back there. Even woman H’s testimony about the attempted rape seems to me as extremely weak.
It’s not uncommon for women to get unwanted attention (and men), but unless someone is displaying sexually violent or threatening behaviours to instill fear, most women can politely say no thanks or abruptly say fuck off.
As a woman myself, I cannot see why these women appear to be so incapable of asserting themselves given the context of how and where these situations occurred. I find it hard to understand from what we’ve learned from these testimonies so far, that it can constitute as sexual assaults and attempted rape.
As a woman myself, I cannot see why these women appear to be so incapable of asserting themselves given the context of how and where these situations occurred.
This. I cannot understand this “I was scared of losing my job so I said nothing”. Or “I was so shocked that I just stood there and did nothing. Then when I got away I didn’t complain and I still did nothing, and I turned up at work as if nothing happened”. Or “It wasn’t until we all got together and started discussing things that I decided to complain”. Or “I received an unsolicited e-mail from the police and went along with it”.
Come on.
Agree. And even if they couldn’t assert themselves on the occasion, there is always someone senior you can go to without needing to go to the police, someone you can raise this with confidentially, off the record. A line manager, a head of department, your union rep if there is one, another colleague, the HR section. Why was this never raised with such figures then? Salmond is cheeky. His audacity is what makes him such a good politician. So I don’t find it hard to believe he might be a bit cheeky and forward with women, especially if he knows them and feels they are friends. A bit of jesting. But I would only call that harassment if after giving him a glare or removing the hand or telling him plainly to f-off, he persisted. But if he’s not told off, how is he supposed to know that his cheeky banter has gone too far?
And there’s a surprising amount of “I froze” and couldn’t react going on.
That’s not an uncommon reaction.
I mean, you’re a junior female employee and the big boss comes on at you. You’re at work. You don’t think of him that way, but he’s the boss, pays the wages, you don’t know what to do.
You can’t deal with this the way you’d brush off some creep down the nightclub.
And if you’ve had previous, well it’s a bit of a dilemma, for males, females, and the law.
‘I find it hard to understand from what we’ve learned from these testimonies so far, that it can constitute as sexual assaults and attempted rape.’
Me too (no pun intended). As a woman I often communicate by squeezing an arm or placing my hand on a shoulder. I totally get it that some people might not like this -but sexual assault, rape? Seriously?
Aye, but there’s hands on hips/top of bum thru clothes in what seems to be a dancing environment.
I mean, that’s just your Boomer way of dancing. We all did it.
The 70s. The decade style forgot.
Much more realism though.
Contempt for stylistics and formalism.
And broadcast media. Then rather more marginal than it is today..
More common sense/
I think maybe you should be more careful with your comments – contempt and all that? That is, talk in generalities but not in reference to anything specific.
I think the defence will address many of these aspects. But you have to remember that most of the reactions described are common, and usual. We all believe we’d act differently, but that’s not often the case, particularly, say, for arguments sake, if you were ambitious and admired power.
It does feel like the political bubble doesn’t have a decent greivance procedure to address some issues that perhaps could have been dealt with in a disciplinary. I think we’ve all had to deal with the handsy unwelcome advances in some shape or form at some point in our lives, to a greater or lesser extent – more common in the past of course – and most are dealt with through various forms of assertion, or avoidance. (I know I’m being really vague here, on purpose!). And mostly men are decent human beings, some just have little concept of accepting women as human beings too. You do have to decide if it’s going to be a continuing problem, if it’s going to affect your work, if it has caused distress, or if you have any recourse to do something about it if you are distressed etc. It’s rare for women not to talk about it, to other women in confidence, I think – even if it’s a male-dominated environment, there is usually a cleaner available 😉
Craig is to be congratulated for clarifying the way the short money system works. For careerist politicians it is both a lifeline and an anchor. It is a financial incentive for them to promote policies with popular appeal while also encouraging them to alienate or discredit radicals.
I noted a side issue mentioned in his post regarding leaps in pay grades and I assume this is part of the complaint regarding short money and may or may not be relevant to the case before the courts, luckily we cannot discuss this at this stage. The BBC have a information page regarding short money: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-32719087 but it ignores the complexities that Craig had highlighted, it is essentially uncritical.
I’ve mentioned before how critical I am of the FPTP system, our lack of a constitution and a properly elected second chamber to keep a reign on the first, so I won’t run this past you all again, except to lament that if Scotland goes it’s own way how poorly served those of us not in Scotland will be without his voice.
Pete
“Our lack of a constitution”. – have you ever wondered why that should be the case? Any thoughts?
Is someone able to inform me as to the relationships the witnesses had with each other and key figures within the SNP and the accused both professionally and social interactions.
I mean from what has been said in Court not from what is known personally or obtained on the rumour mill, just the picture that has emerged from these proceedings (that is in the public domain).
I am not expecting job titles because that would likely identify them but the inter-relationships I suspect are crucial to interpreting the wider picture. It’s to be hoped that the Jury see the full picture.
Well so far I have put together that 10 women raised complaints and 6 have so far given evidence and from that evidence it is revealed that all worked for the SNP and were insiders. Does that answer?
It appears that at least some of them were also members of a WhatsApp group that exchanged information about the allegations, as well as communicating with each other by e-mail and text.
They all seem to be clones of a Stepford Wife, because they all seem to have responded the same way to AS’s alleged advances and use the same or similar language to describe how they felt and why they waited so long to complain.
Indeed they are all singing from the same playbook, as if they have been coached. The whole thing sings ‘stitch up’.
Margaret
But who else was in the WhatsApp group is the question. Is it just the complainants or are others involved. Also who started it and when did it start up? Will the defence find out or does the defence know already know.
Has the Scottish judiciary’s reputation recovered from the Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi conviction yet?
I have a legal background. Once, during a summer when I had an unaccustomed amount of free time, I read through the whole al-Megrahi case – all the papers and related documents that are in the public domain. I was left with the conculsion that a retarded baboon would have been ashamed to convict him on the basis of the case that was made against him.
The Establishment was very clever in arranging the trial under a special treaty so that Al-Megrahi was tried outwith Scotland by a panel of hand-picked judges, with no jury.
I often wonder if it would have made a difference to the verdict if a jury had been in place.
A jury would have acquitted. (After spending a while falling about laughing at the “evidence”, for some of which the CIA paid $2 million if I remember right).
“I was left with the conclusion that a retarded baboon would have been ashamed to convict him on the basis of the case that was made against him”.
As did the EU and UN legal representatives, and Robert Black, who called it one of the worst miscarriages of justice in Scottish history. (Which is probably saying an awful lot). Oddly enough, his book on the trial has been unavailable for years.
Didn’t the prosecution say, early on, that either both accused were guilty or neither? Then the court went on to convict Megrahi and acquit the other man.
“I regard the Lockerbie verdict against Megrahi as a ‘Grand Monument to Human Stupidity’. Indeed, the written opinion of the Lockerbie judges is a remarkable document that claims an ‘honoured place in the history of British miscarriages of justice.’ If the [SCCRC] Commission accepts the application for a full review, the infamous Zeist verdict doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of surviving.”
Robert Black
It never can. It never will. When something is broken, it is broken.
I live in a country (America) with highly prejudicial media coverage of accusations and prosecutions. At the time of indictment, the prosecutors brief is blared out at loud volumes, telling everyone that this person is a killer, terrorist, racist etc. This story is run next to pictures of the accused in chains being led away, or in an orange prison jumpsuit. Then, when the not-at-all-speedy trial finally commences after months or years of public prosecution in the media, again the prosecutors opening statement and lead witnesses are blared out at very loud volumes. Jurors are told to pay no attention, but they’d have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to have heard the loud pronouncements of guilt. Any defense opening arguments are scorned in the final paragraph of the coverage, and all cross-examination of prosecution witnesses is decisively dumped down the memory hole.
Decades ago, I made a nice chunk of cash off of this. The OJ Simpson trial was following this pattern, and in the largely white and heavily Republican suburban office where I did clerical work, someone decided to start an office wagering pool before the verdict was announced. I’d been fascinated by the trial, and in the evenings I’d been watching full replays of the well-paid lawyers that Simpson had hired absolutely destroying an inept case put forward by prosecutors. So, I placed my wager on non-guilty. Everyone else, except for the office’s token African-American typist, bet on guilty. I cleaned up quite nicely on that.
Note, I am not saying that I think OJ was innocent, and I certainly don’t condone the behavior of this guy who as a American sports hero had gotten away with anything he wanted since high-school. This is just a story about how I profited from the corrupt American system and the corrupt and biased media that shapes most American’s narratives on most things. I do wish Mr. Salmond the best, as from what little I can see from the other side of the world, it appears he is being railroaded in a political powerplay to eliminate an effective opponent. I say that only with the experience of living in a nation that is the Greatest in the World and Highly Exceptional at judicial and media railroading.
The Guardian reports:
Witness F, a civil servant in the Scottish government who cannot be named for legal reasons, alleged that Salmond had drunk nearly a full bottle of spirits before he ordered her on to a bed at the first minister’s official residence, Bute House.
‘nearly a full bottle of spirits’ ??…. ‘ordered her’?
also did not the celebrity actor not say that there were four people at a dinner (MsH and AS being 2) and one bottle of wine only shared between the 4?
He also said everyone was in a jovial mood, but definitely not drunk. Which contradicts Witness H’s evidence that AS was pie-eyed.
I doubt anyone who had consumed almost a full bottle of spirits would be conscious, never mind able to issue orders to someone else and try to carry out an assault.
Depends on how much of a drinker you are. I’ve known blokes who’d regularly put away two bottles of Scotch and a bottle of wine in an evening and still be able to function.
Mind you I can’t think of any who are still alive.
“Depends on how much of a drinker you are. I’ve known blokes who’d regularly put away two bottles of Scotch and a bottle of wine in an evening and still be able to function.”
Anyone who drinks spirits other than as a tonic shot should be aware that your body was not designed to process them.
No. Your liver can just about handle fermented fruit.
Anyway, they gave firewater to the Native Americans, the first whiskey distillery was set up in Ulster shortly after this Gaelic kingdom had collapsed.
Then to Scotland.
Russia and environs experiences with vodka is quite similar.
The English, Hogarth and gin.
But yeah, it’s like for rubbin on wounds and for a bit of a very short tonic. A nip, for the cold.
It’s not really for drinking as such. Like a session drinkin and the music and all.
And no amount of smokey this, crystal clear island water that, 70 years ancient oak-barreled something else, changes the fact that any more than an occasional toddy is like really really bad for ya.
Worse than climate change.
I know that heavy drinkers get somewhat hardened, but surely a full bottle of spirits can kill you? I am sure I have read of it happening.
I have also noted exact phrases being used by at least 2 witnesses. “he was the most powerful man in the country”
And “I froze”, or freezing, seems to have been a common reaction
That is because in a sexual offence trial in the summing up the judge is required to give a direction to the jury that in such cases the victim may simply freeze. It is all thought out in advance, same with the alcohol, apologising. Maybe too well thought out.
Back in the day before Salmond’s government? brought in the ‘consent’ law the definition of rape was “to resist, resist and continue to resist” which is a lot different from “froze”.
There are other directions that the judge is required to give the jury in sexual offence cases such as the length of time to report the assault, the absence of force being used. This a legal direction not a verdict. But you can work out what the jury takes home from it. These are supposed to address the ‘myths surrounding rape’. What it is really doing is excluding certain defences. It appears the case, coincidentally or not, that all these women say that they “froze”. It is possibly also why many women say “I can’t remember having sex” because if alcohol effects their judgement, consent cannot be given regardless. Remember all of these women talk of partaking of Chinese wine.
Talking of ‘freezing’ would one not be wearing a coat in February?
Was the knee touch above or below the coat?
Did we have snow in Feb 2011?
There is a pandemic and the first UK budget for about 18 months. A budget that is supposed to assist the people of Scotland with the potential negative income ramifications of the pandemic etc. What is the main headline from the British press in Scotland.
“Salmonds sloppy kiss”
This is the upstanding and decent press allowed access to the court.
will the cauldron be called in evidence?
To summarise: ‘Nudge, nudge, wink, wink’. You can read all that stuff in the news, without the innuendo.
If there is a blogist conspiracy theory to be made, and there is no doubt various ones will be made, quite possibly here, it’ll have to be about a conspiracy within the SNP. And it’s way beyond human imagination.
Anyway, I find it perverted reading about all this gross shit, and after this it’ll just be the usual ‘she’s lying’ / ‘she was up for it’ shtik, so I’m going to turn-off and wait for the verdict.
Pm just now ‘ as in Scotland they have a particular issue with the resilience of its public services’ commenting on the possible closure of schools.
This Government has failed to introduce measures to stop cross contamination, whether its the failure to test returning travellers from Italy, cross contamination at Cheltenham, or todays announcement on flights which will see travellers to the US, from 26 EU countries? Come to UK airports? With possible cross contamination.
Nevermind
Please see my comments
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/forums/topic/corona-virus-governemnt-takes-the-st-augustine-approach/
The whole idea of this contempt law assumes that jurors are too stupid to be on a jury.
Or too stupid to dodge jury duty. They must have all actively wanted to serve on the Salmond trial though. We all knew when Salmond was due to stand trial. So if you had a ‘jury citation’ for that day and turned up in court you knew you would possibly be in the ballot for the Salmond trial. If you couldn’t be bothered you would have just binned the ‘jury citation’. Though there must have been many Edinbughians itching to get a ‘jury citation’ for 9th March.
It’s an offence not to turn up for jury service wen summoned. You can bin the citation if you want but risk arrest and hefty fine.
No. You can’t just bin a jury citation without consequences. And a large number are selected for the jury pool and then there is a ballot. So it is a random process. I’ve been there – not just on the occasion I was selected but other occasions, too.
I should mention not just High Court ( serious criminal trials) but also Sheriff Court (lesser criminal trials plus civil procedures) and also Court of Session ( civil procedures).
I’m in my 60s and I’ve been called for jury service several times.