Through a solicitor I have now obtained copies of, or at least the text of, the court orders banning me from the Alex Salmond trial. These court orders are simply an extract of the minutes of the court rather than separate documents.
The Advocate depute submitted to the court that this case has received considerable publicity, with one member of the public, namely Craig Murray has been running a continuous blog. This individual has previously received a written warning from the Crown Office Procurator Fiscal Service with regards to the Contempt of Court Act 1981, he subsequently posted a copy of that letter. The individual applied to the Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service for access to the media gallery which was refused. He has attended within the Public Gallery when the court has been opened. It has come to the attention of the crown that this individual’s blog has divulged information which would identify one of the complainers in this case. He invited the court to exclude Mr Murray from the court for the remainder of these proceedings as his continued presence would not be in the interest of justice. Further he submitted that the possible breach of the Contempt of Court Order was currently being considered by the Crown.
The Dean of Faculty advised the court that he has no objection to the motion to exclude the individual from the court.
The Court being satisfied that the advocate depute has set out a prima facia case that Craig Murray may have breached the Order made, in these proceedings, by this court on 10 March 2020 in terms of section 11 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981, excluded the said Craig Murray from attending in the public gallery for the remainder of these proceedings, said exclusion being made at common law.
Ross Martin
Depute Clerk of JusticiaryThe Court on the motion of the advocate depute directed that the close be closed to the public and members of the media. Further the court, on the motion of the advocate depute, there being no objection, made an order in terms of the Contempt of Court Act 1981, section 4(2) preventing the publication of the details of the issues raised in the legal submissions that took place, within a closed court between 10:45 hours and 10:49hours on 19 March 2020. Said order to be in place pending the resolution of trial proceedings against the accused Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond.
Ross Martin
Depute Clerk of Justiciary
This confirms some important facts. It was the prosecutor, not the judge, who had initiated my banning. Further, the prosecution had at the very least been following, and it is not a large stretch to assume been instrumental in, the refusal to accredit me as media and allow me to be present and report during the prosecution case. The reasons given for refusing my accreditation were a series of evident falsehoods and excuses.
The prosecution then brought a further motive to ban publication of the fact that I had been barred from the public gallery. That is a kind of super-injunction, and particularly sinister.
I also strongly object to the fact that the above court discussion of me was held in secret, without my being informed let alone present, and that I was given no opportunity to refute the points made against me. I was in fact in the queue outside the court while they were discussing me inside. As this was a legal proceeding and ruling by a judge, that is entirely contrary to natural justice.
The most important fact here is that it is all threat and bluster. I have not been found guilty of contempt of court. I have not even been charged with contempt of court. I was in fact very careful throughout to stay clear of contempt, more so than the mainstream media, as documented in detail by Wings Over Scotland. Remember that Contempt of Court carries up to two years in prison – and is decided by the judge without a jury, on a summary hearing.
As detailed in that Wings article, unlike the Guardian and the Times, for example, I omitted in my reporting the fact that one of the accusers had been present at a meeting with Nicola Sturgeon and Geoff Aberdein on 29 March 2018, precisely because to include it could have lead to her easy identification. I was much more careful than the mainstream media – but they were not threatened with contempt of court or banned from covering the trial.
The truth is that the prosecution were insistent I should be banned because of another, indisputable fact. Nobody else but I produced the in depth detail of the defence case that refuted the prosecution allegations, using eye witness testimony that in many cases proved the accusers were actively lying. The mainstream media gave detail of prosecution evidence and copied out the most sensational phrases of allegation to make lurid headlines; they gave virtually no detail of the defence witnesses or what they said on oath.
You can test this. Read my detailed account of the defence on the two days I was actually permitted in the court. Try doing a Google news search of the major defence witnesses who gave key evidence. What do you get? Virtually nothing.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/03/your-man-finally-in-the-public-gallery-the-alex-salmond-trial-day-7/
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/03/your-man-finally-in-the-public-gallery-the-alex-salmond-trial-day-8/
I can and do make the claim that were it not for my reporting, the verdict would have seemed utterly perverse to the people of Scotland. Fortunately this blog has a large enough reach, sufficiently amplified by many thousands of other social media users, that I was able to get the truth out far enough to people, particularly within the Independence movement, to make a very real difference.
Despite the concerted attempts of the Crown to prevent me.
The Crown had already attempted to terrify me into silence with its earlier threat of prosecution. This had failed, and as I expected the Crown had not been able to follow through on its threats of prosecution for contempt. That the Crown was able to stop my attendance at the trial based on further obscure allegations of contempt – again not followed through – is illegitimate state censorship.
The judge was very wrong to ban me from the court not based on anything in contempt I had written, but on the notion that I might in future write something in contempt of court. This is plainly a violation of my human right to free speech under the European Convention. I am taking legal advice on action. You cannot ban someone from court on the basis they might say something wrong in future, when they have never been convicted of, or even charged with, contempt.
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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Many thanks for the update Craig, as always. I do wonder, however, whether the issue over easy ID of one of the ‘Alphabet Sisters’ was in fact a sinister trap being set. After all, it seems incredible to think the papers were all universally naive and besides, what better way to discredit YES supporters than to incite repercussions against complainers? Thankfully no-one has taken the bait.
I do confess to being frustrated at Salmond’s admirable self-restraint amidst the ongoing trial by media, but I suspect that when the evidence sees the light of day, the Sturgeon and Murrell cabal will find their positions untenable.
I hope you sue them to the hilt Craig this so called Scottishness justice system would be more akin to the mafia .,I can’t wait for A.S. To reveal all the lies and the liars they should in turn be charged with deceit and they might as well have said they were going to lock you up because in future you might commit murder go get them!!!
“…I do confess to being frustrated at Salmond’s admirable self-restraint amidst the ongoing trial by media, but I suspect that when the evidence sees the light of day, the Sturgeon and Murrell cabal will find their positions untenable…”
CD: you are in exactly the same danger of positing unproven theory as fact as the weak evidence in the Salmond trial. Proof is always necessary, and, if your theories do not prove to be correct or cannot overcome the hurdle of ‘beyond reasonable doubt’, down they fall. Otherwise, you have one set of rules for the FM and another for the former FM. Do you see?
It’s as plain as day that the evidence heard in court immediately convinced the jury of Salmond’s innocence. Everything is just a political, legal game, even the accidental filming of the Defence Barrister Jackson denigrating Salmond on a train. This was a political trial and political people will always stick their stings into any unprotected space they can, including journalists like Craig. The only important and salient point is that the jury heard the evidence and proclaimed Salmond 100% innocent. There is no further discussion to be had on the matter. Innuendo, inference, headlines, gossip, tights, wigs, make-up or perfume prove nothing.
A jury verdict in the UK means Salmond is proven Innocent. Nothing more to say.
The verdict was not immediate, and they do not find anyone innocent, but not guilty or not proven.
It is murky, but not criminal. Many, perhaps most people manage to go through their lives without having to apologise to women for their behaviour, particularly ones they have workplace authority over.
How is your rabbit hole.
How can you be ejected from the courtroom for possible contempt of court when countless media outlets have revealed far more information on a individual complainer but were never held to account.
It stands to reason that if proceeding were to be held against you then they must also be held against them.
I think they’ve just used the contempt of court accusation as a way of ejecting you from the proceedings, so that you could not write about it in the fair and proper way you do on your blog.
So what can we take from this, was the judge bias against you, or did she just take the prosecutions word on it. Either way it is as you say not fair and proper, also is it worth taking the matter any further, is there anything to be gained by doing so.
Your presence at the trial was admirable, however the establishment press were always going to report the trial in a bias and skewed fashion against Salmond no matter what.
I’d let it go, put it down to experience, and carry on.
Easy, challenge injustice; bosses law is for bosses benefit.
Craig, are you sure there aren’t some dodgy laws for protecting courtrooms themselves for things that go on inside the courtroom? It seems ludicrous I know, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
I get a smell of a big bad disgusting odour. Maybe a few strings pulled using a hidden network, one we can all agree exists? So, not the illuminati. The masonic lodge, however, is a popular institution among the legal profession and various other organisations that see themselves as flag bearers for the establishment.
How broad is criminal law these days?
“Criminal contempt goes a step further, and requires proof that the accused intended to interfere with or impede the administration of justice.”.. If justice is again medieval, “guilty, even if proven innocent”, well, you sir are an excellent criminal!! 😉
They defintely tried to nobble you and didn’t fully succeed.
Do you think the prosecution was working with the SNP leadership on this one?
“Do you think the prosecution was working with the SNP leadership on this one?”
Hard to imagine that they weren’t.
Objection! M’lud.
Leading question by the yank.
Try the other leg … it’s got bells on it.
1) Not a leading question.
2) Not a Yank.
@Craig – When they keep calling you an “individual”, that’s when you know they hate you. They can’t even bring themselves to write “Mr Murray”.
How did the “Crown’s” consideration of “a possible breach of the Contempt of Court Order” go? I’d ask them for a date by which they expect to tell you either that they are prosecuting you or that they have decided not to. Or do they want people to think they’re planning to keep a possible prosecution in their pocket so they can whip it out and hit you with it if you do something else in the future that they don’t like?
These creeps make it up as they go along. They aren’t half scandalised that somebody is trying to shine a light on their filthy corrupt doings. They even make it crystal clear how much they hate it when they write a bullying letter (“written warning”) and the recipient publishes it.
If it was me, I’d be tempted to write back and refer to the Dean of Faculty, the Depute Clerk of Justiciary, not to forget the twat at the Crown Office Procurator Fiscal Service, using phrases such as “this individual did this” and “this individual wrote that”.
“They don’t like it up ’em“!
Credibility is your weapon and you wield it and document it admirably, sir. Kudos!
Everyone here should remember you are battling very powerful people and influential groups who have a lot to lose and you are taking great risk by being perverse, without taking the hint to cease.
Among many other remedies within their grasp, you could become the target of a secret extradition request by a friend, and end up with a cell next to Julian (a long ways away from home in Quantico, perhaps), if you persist and need to be made an example of.
Yes, it is a game of very high stakes. On the positive side, I don’t get bored very often 🙂
If you need additional support to defend against this, just ask.
Re additional support, I agree and will gladly contribute to any appeal Craig makes if any proceedings are entered into. The freedom to report on cases of great public interest is very important, the contempt charge is just an attempt to muzzle your voice. Craig was almost the only report of any credible value during the trial. The paid hacks did what they were told at the expense of truth.
On the Positive Side.. You Know you are cared for…
I’m in for £ support.
Ditto
It comes down to the judge and the various law officers: I do not think it is a crime for prosecuting counsel to put forward even clearly mendacious proposals, their job is merely to argue its case and let the judge/presiding officers judge the case on its merits.
It is those officers who conducted the hearing with no ‘defence lawyers’ present, no ‘defendant’ present who have a case to answer.
Of course, if prosecuting counsel and their acolytes were shown to be threatening, blackmailing or otherwise intending to pervert the course of justice through pressure on Scottish legal officials, that is something very different.
Interesting to hear how this legal advice of yours concludes.
I have been finding out about how someone can in effect park their car outside your house indefinitely as long as the vehicle is taxed. Councils will do nothing about taxed vehicles, Mercedes Benz cannot by law contact an owner of a car to ask why TF they have left it where they have for five weeks (all our neighbours have informed us that the car is nothing to do with them), starting not two weeks after they renewed the tax disc. Apparently, the only hope is if it has been stolen so the police can ‘use their statutory powers to pursue their enquiries’. The listed telephone number for the local police station is not answering calls….CoVid19 and all that. Will I be arrested for going to the cop shop in person to report this stationary vehicle?
Traffic wardens slap on statutory fines for 5 minutes overtime, but five weeks outside someone’s house? Who cares…..
Otherwise, if someone decides to leave their car outside our house with a tax disc up to date, the law says it can stay there indefinitely.
…. all very interesting, but may I politely ask – what the cazzo has the car parked outside your house got to do with Craig Murray being kept out of the public gallery during the Alex Salmond case?
Taxed AND insured. Rhys.
And there are no tax discs any more.
To my mind the process to remove an unattended vehicle shouldn’t take five weeks, I estimate no longer than about a fortnight and there’s probably a prescribed method beginning with a wheel brace and four house bricks. After about two days the windscreen wipers mysteriously disappear and the day after that the passenger window is smashed and the radio also disappears. It’s not long after that the neighbours, en masse, bombard the council offices with complaints of an eyesore and a danger to the public resulting in the arrival of a breakdown truck equipped with a hoist and removes the offending vehicle to the local breaker’s yard. Presumably you’re happy, the neighbours are happy, the local authority is happy and the breaker’s yard is ecstatic.
This, of course, has nothing to do with Mr Murray being kept out of the Salmond court prosecution as James has asked – that is a more serious subject and one which the whole nation should be rightly concerned about.
Hire or buy a set of car skates:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5evHL7jtTM
Check the area for CCTV. In the middle of the night with the help of friend, jack up said car and roll it into the middle of the road and leave it there at a jaunty angle. All of this can be accomplished very quickly and in near silence. The following morning and in no time at all, several people will call the police and report the vehicle as causing an obstruction. Police will ticket the vehicle and have it lifted to a compound.
…..better still, roll it onto the nearest double yellow lines where it will accrue daily tickets.
Unless you live on a public street with restricted parking, resident permit, disabled markings, single or double yellow lines, then as long as the vehicle is legal then it can stay there for as long as the owner requires and it is nothing to do with you or anybody else. The vehicle may belong to someone visiting a nearby resident on a long term basis and has no need of the vehicle for travel or if you are lucky to live near an airport, the owner may have deposited it there while they visit their villa in the south of France, thus avoiding the rip-off car parking fees airports are allowed to charge. Nothing to do with you Sir. The roads outside belong to the Crown and it is a privilege that you are allowed to use them for use of your own vehicles, subject to the appropriate fees being paid. It is first come first served, Suck it up and stop being so Daily Mail-ish!
I’m sure there could be innocent if inconsiderate reasons for the vehicle being there. However it could be a car dealer parking it there because his business premises are too small for his stock – he doesn’t want to pay higher rent and rates for bigger premises, it could be a holiday car parking company leaving it there whilst the paying owners think it is in a secure compound, it could be someone who has reneged on the payments for the vehicle and has left it there to prevent it being seized at the registered address, or worse still it could be being used as a drop, a sort of invisible street side ‘locker’. One drug dealer drives up to the car and puts a package inside, they then ring the other dealer in the chain and they arrive later on with another set of keys to retrieve the package, they are never seen together and possibly may never have met.
We shall never know of course as the possibilities are endless. It could be a MI5 safe car where clandestine meetings take place in the middle of the night and secret papers are exchanged between agents and their handlers. However, as long as the correct VED has been paid, has a current MOT certificate and relevant insurance then it really is nobody elses business. I once went to report an obviously dumped car on an adjacent road which had no houses on it, at the police station. They were not the slightest bit interested, indeed I got the impression they were somewhat annoyed that a member of the public should come into their domain and be giving them some work to do. The best advice I got there was to report it to the local council whose responsibility it is to deal with such matters. There have been incidents where car owners have left their vehicles on private drive-ways to avoid incurring penalties parking on the public road. It seems there is no law against this as trespass in not a criminal offence at least in England.
I do not think it is a crime for prosecuting counsel to put forward even clearly mendacious proposals, their job is merely to argue its case and let the judge/presiding officers judge the case on its merits.
That can’t be right. It is against professional ethics for any barrister (or solicitor) to lie to the court, or to make wildly frivolous submissions. I’d think that applies a fortiori for counsel representing the crown.
For example, the handbook of the English Bar Standards Board lists the following core duties for barristers:
– CD1 You must observe your duty to the court in the administration of justice.
– CD3 You must act with honesty, and with integrity..
– CD5 You must not behave in a way which is likely to diminish the trust and confidence which the public places in you or in the profession.
Aaah….that age old Scots legal precept:
“if my aunty had baws …(she’d be ma uncle)..”
Keep at it Craig,best of luck!
This intervention would not be beyond the reach of MI5 judge-in-residence, Mev Vanessa Bananarepublicker. Her ability to read a close typed script written by her husband while observed by Craig is certainly cause for ejection from any court, kangaroo or otherwise.
I had to read Vanessa’s surname twice to parse it correctly; at first I thought you were insinuating that Vanessa licks bananas in pubs. 😉
Given the zeal brought to bear upon Mr Murray for a notional misdemeanour, one now looks forward to the prosecution of the media miscreants as identified by Wings Over Scotland.
If the judge had refused the prosecution application for exclusion, would the later have had the ability to appeal that ruling? Even if such an appeal was unsuccessful, in that case it could have resulted in the delay and maybe cessation of the trial. Which might have suited the prosecution, given that they had probably realised by then that the result was unlikely to go their way – lawyers have a shrewder grasp of this than journalists.
That might explain both the ruling (if the judge wanted the trial completed) and the failure to object by the defence. It also could explain why the prosecution bothered to act so late – by Day 9 nearly all the defence witnesses had given evidence and Craig’s reporting would have done its damage to the media consensus. So there was no reason other than spite to try to keep him out, unless they saw it as a way of halting the trial.
Roger Mexico – yes – if they really were keeping him out in order to stop him from reporting, then it looks like blithering incompetence. They kept him out after he had heard, and reported, all the serious stuff.
It could have been spite. On the other hand, it could have been his friends and they could have done it for his own good. He had given us all the important information. He hadn’t given away the identity of one of the accused, but his tweeting might have been in danger of doing this if he had continued.
So for me it is either blithering incompetence on the part of the forces of darkness, or else anonymous friends of Craig Murray stopping him from tweeting something that might put him in contempt of court.
James
I have no idea what you are talking about. It was the prosecution who made the motion, who most certainly are not friends of mine. I was not tweeting from the court, but writing a daily report. They did succeed in stopping me from reporting the final defence witnesses and the summing up.
Craig – I’m just trying (and failing) to find some logic in this.
I, for one, am very grateful for all the efforts you made – and everything you wrote on this matter. You have exposed a great deal of corruption, which stinks to high heaven and this goes much further than simply Alex Salmond.
I did get the point that the prosecution were basically a bunch of mendacious liars, but I didn’t understand that they were completely stupid.
Their move was not only nasty, it was also (on the face of it) completely stupid. They failed to stop you reporting the important facts (the meat and potatoes of the evidence had already been given and you had already reported it before they kicked you out) and they have simply given very good ammunition against themselves.
So I am struck by the sheer stupidity of their move – this is a new dimension.
Roger,
The defence were representing Alex Salmond. They were not representing me and therefore had no particular reason to object. I was unrepresented..
Which goes to show that the defence had other things to contend with and the prosecuting lawyers were playing to a wider audience.
Roger, spite or one of its lesser manifestations could indeed have much to do with it.There are some grand egos in the fiscal service.
The reference to their own “warning letter” is quite pathetic, as though their personal peevishness was of any relevance but it does serve to indicate the prosecution’s view of their place in the world.
The function of an officer of the court is to assist the court establish the truth.
Unfortunately fiscals often attempt to persuade the court of their version of the truth and that is an entirely different proposition.
I thought it was”rebut” not “refute”?
Your reporting of the Salmond trial was exemplary and impressive. You are owed a great debt of gratitude by those appalled by the grinding wheels of justice as mediated by the media. Your Assange reporting has been equally impressive and depressing. I wish that I thought that you had time to direct your attention to the report (and the reporting of it) of the Labour Party’s internal report on the handling of complaints of anti-semitism by the Labour Party. You have become the I.F.Stone of Scottish honest and critical analysis.
I hope you pursue this Craig. It stinks to high heaven and we need a hero to bring the bu**ers down!
However the defence lawyers had no objection to the motion to exclude Craig or if they did have objections they internalised them. A tactical masterstroke or just not bothered either way? I hope it is the latter.
Andrew Ingram – there is an awful lot about this that simply does not add up. Yes – a tactical masterstroke for the defence to remain silent and let the prosecution do this. Craig Murray had already reported on the key aspects of the trial; we already knew that there were reliable eyewitnesses who flatly contradicted the account given by the alphabet sisters. Then, at this point, after all this was out in the open, Craig Murray was banned – when there was nothing of importance left to say.
Furthermore, he was banned for the most ludicrous reasons. They (of course) were well aware that he would be able to get hold of the documents that he presented to us at the beginning of this article. I cannot help but wonder whether there was a mole on the prosecution side who, when he saw which way the wind was blowing, really wanted to egg his colleagues on to do something stupid where the sheer stupidity would then be on record and publicly exposed and ridiculed before too long.
At the point where Murray was banned, the defence really had no reason to keep him in the gallery; the pertinent facts had already been reported, they may well have let it go on the `give them enough rope’ principle – and I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that there was an advisor on the prosecution side secretly delighted that the prosecution were making fools of themselves.
There is more to this than meets the eye. Craig Murray wrote his piece in all sincerity – but it simply doesn’t add up.
As I said in an earlier post, my view was that the order excluding you was wholly in breach of natural justice. To not put you on notice of the motion to exclude, thereby preventing you to even know, never mind to have the oppurtunity to refute what it is alleged against you is a clear breach of your Human Rights and natural justice, Furthermore, you weren’t even served with the order, being barred from entry to the court, by a pollce officer.
You should investigate possible crowd funding for legal advice as to possible remedies. I know that I, and many others, would contribute to a fighting fund.
We should all be most concerned by these incremental and seemingly acceptable erosions of our liberties. When the hell will we wake up? When the last liberty is gone?
Lawyers will use all the dirty tricks in their trade to get one over the opposition and win their case. They would n’t want to tackle the media hacks because they see them as on their side, but they would see a “blogger” providing an alternative way of seeing things as a threat to their narrative and therefore to be gagged.
Interesting development; the first of many to come no doubt.
I may have missed it, but didn’t see your take on Julian Assange having fathered two children with one of his lawyers while holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy.
No wonder he looked so tired
Probably because it is completely irrelevant?
Check Craig’s twitter
Hannah Jane is a vomiter by profession. She vomits for money. And this is an example of it.
She’s putting other liberals on notice: you’re not a true liberal if that picture doesn’t make you feel like vomiting forever.
The rest of the thread is equally rude to Assange and his partner.
Whether or not you like Assange, it’s just base rudeness.
People complain about toxicity on twitter. Well this is it, coming from a mainstream journalist.
How on earth did journalists become so impolite in public.
I would lose my job immediately if I did this.
Plus, and this is the reason I replied to joel, the tone of the whole thread is so very cliquey and mean schoolgirl cattiness. I thought adults moved on from this.
No wonder he looked so tired…
Erm… because he had sex twice in seven years?
Good luck to your girlfriend, you stallion you.
ha ha, my goodness, it’s really funny!
I join my sympathy for the girlfriend / boyfriend.
I don’t like using emojis but Stonky
???????????
http://rm.coe.int/168007ff48
A guide to the implementation of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights
Very good Courtney did they give you that one in the rugby club.
How does one go about securing the written judgement by the ‘individual’ who ordered the exclusion of Mr Murray from the trial?
Are those documents freely available?
Craig, please do not take your mobile anywhere, you are in the crosshair of their Angst and ire. Use other peoples phones, or some randomly deposited one way phones that are encrypted.
It is vital that A.S. starts loading his punt guns, these ducks are only vulnerable for a while before other issues cover their wretched ruddyness.
You have done more for real journalismn and Scotland than any of the top sites, sorry about the mistake, in the SNP.
Seconded.
It was meant to be a show trial.
You were running a commentary that the unionists could not control therefor you had to go.
The fact the jury could come to the wrong conclusion was something unionists had not allowed for.
This is why the bitterness and resentment from the media continues. They already had their headline and seven page spread written and the jury went and wrecked it.
I have always found it odd that in the eyes of unionists Alex Salmond only became an issue after he went to work for RT. A media source they cannot control.
You and people like Rev Stu are also media sources they can not control so harassment and marginalization is the tactic pursued.
Stay safe.
Rookiescot – look – there is something that doesn’t add up here. If it really was meant to be a show trial, then they didn’t make a very good job of it – the failed stitch-up marks them out as both stupid and incompetent.
Nasty – yes – I’m quite prepared to believe that. But such a ball-breaking level of stupidity and incompetence? This doesn’t add up.
But I don’t have alternative theories.
Because they had assumed that most of the jury would dislike Alex Salmond as much as they do. They believed the jury would let their own personal political and or personal views of Salmond to colour their judgement. They were blinded by their own feelings.
If this had been someone other than Alex Salmond it would never have made it as far as court. There simply was not enough evidence to convict on any of the charges. They knew that. What they hoped to do was throw enough shit and hope some of it stuck and coupled with some of the juries bias would be enough.
The media had him convicted before the trial even started. They reported every lurid detail of the accusations but none of the defense.
It was a show trial. The show just didn’t end the way it was supposed to.
If true, then it was a foolish assumption. Remember Tommy Sheridan? This was a jury probably of the same sort of profile – middle class Edinburgh ladies. Somehow, I imagine the deliberations of the jury taking place with a Morningside accent. They probably didn’t like Tommy Sheridan very much – but they liked the News of the World even less.
That is the trouble with juries – they often give a good answer even when directed by the judge to give a wrong answer. Remember the trial of Pat Pottle and Michael Randle at the Old Bailey in 1991? The jury acquitted them, even though the judge basically ordered the jury to find the defendants guilty.
But I can’t believe that they would have been stupid enough to imagine that a respectable Morningside jury would find Alex Salmond guilty.
Rookiescot – look – there is something that doesn’t add up here. If it really was meant to be a show trial, then they didn’t make a very good job of it – the failed stitch-up marks them out as both stupid and incompetent…
There are two issues here.
This, for example:
Yes, ten years ago I was in a car with Alex Salmond for a 2- minute drive to the station. And he put his hand on my knee through my trousers, even though there was a fixed arm rest between us big enough to contain a phone. Yes and my husband was in the car with us but he didn’t notice anything. And no I didn’t mention it to him afterwards. And no I didn’t mention it to him at any point over the next ten years. And no the driver didn’t notice anything either. But Salmond definitely sexually assaulted me…
I don’t know what level of personal hatred you would need to have for someone, to be able to listen to that inane drivel, and then say to yourself“Yup. I’m going to see him banged up for sexual assault for that…” But some jurors clearly went into the court room armed with that level of personal hatred. If there had been 8, instead of only 3 or 4 or 5 or whatever, Salmond would now be in jail.
Stonky
“which means on every single charge there were members of the jury willing to convict AS for sexual assault” sorry Stonky but you do not know that. As I have posted previously it could be that there was one juror saying not proven and the remainder saying not guilty for each of the not guilty charges. The not proven verdict could have been a mixture of not proven and not guilty as well.
Also in your example you could have stated the driver said that everyone in the car was in very good spirits. These women were clearly lying. No ifs no buts.
the iraq war was a massive show of stupidity and incompetence, the douma fakes were stupid and incompetent, etc. etc. they can get away with it because they are organized, mostly control the media, and very well financed and supported by government power.
Reading this again, I notice that what Craig obtained from a solicitor was the Court minutes, an admirable safeguard of justice so that nobody can question the proceedings of the trial at a later date or claim it was invalid.. it’s written in court speak by a ‘ depute ‘ which sounds to me like a relic of historical French.
This document is written in a style that emphasises the importance and gravitas of the legal proceedings, which is a good thing. As with so many offensive official documents, its intention is not to be offensive but to underline it’s legal authority.. That is all excellent, because no amount of revisionist politicking by bent hacks or bought politicians can undermine the verdict of the court.
The words “Minority Report” and “Future Criminal” come to mind.
A speling error, Craig. “… it could have lead to her easy identification …” The past tense of to lead is led.
A word to the wise. When you correct someone else’s spelling, don’t make spelling mistakes yourself.
Thank you for your wise counsel. 😉
Aww, polite grammar-Nazi’s friendly match. So cute!
Aww, Tatyana in a mask, so cute..?
Niqab?
My commercial vein is tormented by the idle white space of the avatar 🙂 I think about adding text “your ad could be here” on the mask.
Unfortunately, John A missed my humble attempt at humour. It happens.
Regarding your “gramar Nazi” jibe, is being helpful to be so derided?
Grammar-Nazi is grotesque for fun. I’m sorry, the remnants of the stupid old education pushed me to this joke.
When I was a little girl, my mother taught me this: while in society and having a conversation, we may notice that someone used the word incorrectly. If the error does not spoil the meaning, then we will not pay attention to it. If a mistake leads to a misunderstanding, then we politely ask for clarification. If we are much worried about the mistake, then it’s better to make a comment privately, rather than publicly.
Mom said it was called “tact” and “good manners.” Mom said that these are very good rules for any society, they allow to focus on the essence of the conversation, and also make everyone feel comfortable. Hope it was helpful. 🙂
I’m pretty sure that in Craig’s case it was a typo. But it’s a fact that the internet is plastered nowadays with supposedly educated people who think that the past form of the verb “to lead” is “lead”.
I always think it’s an admirable achievement to go through at least ten years of compulsory education and emerge at the other end unable to spell a three-letter word in your own native language… (“Loose” for “lose”? Well, that’s fair enough. I mean that’s four letters!)
Craig’s well written blogs bring into sharp focus the absolutely sinister and evil shadows that lurk behind our so called democracy.
And yes, had Craig not brought the truth out the combination of show trial and a universally hostile, and indeed coordinated media would have poisoned much of the population against Salmond, even on acquittal.
As a Cause Celebre when the full details of the conspirators emerge I think it would be fair to say that the SNP leadership and direction will change and change utterly.
Queen Nicola may be comfortable in her role as a devolved Governor General for Scotland but the conspirators exposure, together with how her blind adherence to the Downing Street virus policy, will I suspect become a double blow for her and her compromised coterie.
There is a big fight coming up and a fight we must win.
Sturgeon should get to the bottom of England thieving Scotland’s PPE. That would be enough to declare unilateral independence. This story needs to come out with evidence and that will put even more people in the independence camp. Come on all you great Scottish researchers/whistleblowers. Is Sturgeon trying to hide this act of piracy on land?
Criag, you’re not naive enough to believe they would give people, kike your good self, an easy ride when they are critical of the state.
Jeanne Freeman continues to push for clarity as of this morning. The denials of Hancock and Sunak yesterday are not sufficient. Freeman quite rightly ain’t letting this one go.
The company’s (Gompels) website is quite explicit, someone at Public Health England instructed them not to sell PPE to Scotland & Wales. Why would the company lie? They even apologise to their customers in Scotland & Wales.
FWIW, this has Civil Service written all over it. It is to be hoped that no English political could be so blind to the consequences of an instruction of prohibition to supply Scotland & Wales.
In 2014 the “love bombing” of Scotland was a MSM construct fronted by celebrities. In truth there is negligible social solidarity between the three Nations and the one province (and why should there be?).
No one’s thieving Scotland’s PPE. The PPE in question comes from Public Health England’s stockpile which has been re-tested and cleared for use. It seems that Scotland never had it’s own stocks so is now dependent on supplies from England.
https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/politics/scottish-politics/2145700/ppe-distributor-at-the-heart-of-a-cross-border-storm-defends-decision-to-send-anti-coronavirus-kit-to-english-care-homes/
Kempe
A Britnat referencing a lying Britnat journalist as a source of the truth. Always laughable. ???????
“when the full details of the conspirators emerge I think it would be fair to say that the SNP leadership and direction will change and change utterly”
Optimistic. These right wing careerists are regarded as a bullwark against anti-establishment forces, so the media will not relate their crimes to the wider public. Look at how mass media reacted to the leaked Labour report last weekend.