Contempt of Court 211


I am still frankly stunned that I was found in contempt of court. I maintain that I carefully identified nobody and, as empirically proven, the MSM did far more than I in revealing identities. I also believe that the terms of the Opinion would make it simply impossible to report anything except the prosecution case in any sexual assault trial – and that MSM journalists are entirely sanguine about this because they believe that in practice the ruling would only be used against dissidents, and never against them.

It is very difficult for me to try to explain why, in my own case, what has happened has much wider bad consequences, because it simply looks like special pleading. I am therefore very pleased that legal analyst Alexander Mercouris has written this important piece at Consortium News, and I should be grateful to you for reading it.

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211 thoughts on “Contempt of Court

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  • Rhys Jaggar

    That article is an extremely well written, extremely fair-minded and suitable independent analysis from a journalist not involved in either SNP politics, the Scotland-England political dynamic nor it would seem the UK-US brouhaha over the Assange trial.

    I have to say that the legal decision against you, Mr Murray, does not pass my ‘common sense’ barometer.

    You didn’t identify anyone, no-one came forward to suggest that they identified anyone as a result of reading your articles, the jury was not influenced by your reporting and you had no intention of any of that coming to pass. The prosecution at the Salmond Trial did not stop you blogging, so either they were vindictively trying to trap you with the express intent of having you prosecuted (something which I would not consider worthy of someone calling themselves a warrior for justice) or they themselves saw no effect of your writings on the way the trial played out.

    To me this is rather like a woman demanding divorce including 50% of the assets, access to the children etc etc for you merely commenting that you consider XXX to be a physically attractive woman, despite the fact that you have never slept with her, never attempted to chat her up, but merely had a little flirtatious banter with her at some public function when both of you knew full well that that was all that it was.

    It would rather be like her claiming that even the thought that any other women are physically attractive is morally equivalent to committing adultery. There would not be too many marriages lasting too long if that were the bar for a ‘satisfactory attitude to marriage’….

    The ruling is profoundly misguided in my opinion and I do hope that the Supreme Court reverses it and uses the opportunity to issue the sort of statement which, whilst couched in legalese and diplomatic niceties, makes no bones about the fact that whilst this may not have been the lowest hour in 21st century Scottish justice, it is well within the bottom 10% of rulings issued since 2000…..

    • arby

      “That article is an extremely well written, extremely fair-minded and suitable independent analysis”

      Which is why it’s no longer available.

  • Tatyana

    Here’s what I’ll tell you, folks.
    The information published by Mr. Murray could possibly be harmful if it were in the possession of a certain person along with other pieces of the general puzzle.
    This is comparable to the fact that Mr. Murray would have owned cartridges with which it’s potentially possible to kill someone under certain circumstances.

    In Russian, this idea is more easily conveyed in a joke:
    During the “dry law” a policeman accidentally discovers spare parts for a distiller machine in a dusty shed. He’s going to arrest the owner.
    – I’m sorry, Sir, did you catch me selling moonshine? – the man asks.
    – No, but you own the device!
    – Well, then arrest me for rape too,- the man says.
    – Did you rape anyone?
    – No, but I have the device.

    • james

      very good tatyana! thanks.. as i mentioned earlier – this is not about ”’the law”’ but about selective application to silence opposition to power… unfortunately in both the case of assange and craig murray those in places of high power control the direction and scope of the judicial process… as a consequence the juidicial process itself is criminal…

      • Tatyana

        Exactly, James.
        Looks like there’s a joke for every case 🙂
        Another one that fits the situation:
        The judge comes out of his office and laughs so hard that even he finds it difficult to breathe. His colleague in the hall sees this and asks in surprise:

        – What’s the matter?

        – Oh, I just heard such a funny anecdote … – continues to laugh.

        – Well, do tell me please!

        – Are you crazy? No way! I’ve just sentenced a man to seven years in prison for that!

        • Tatyana

          Re. the above joke – it comes from the times of the Soviet Union, when dissidents were thrown into prison for criticizing the authorities. But unfortunately for the Soviet authorities, it is impossible to forbid people to express their opinions in one way or another. It was expressed but in the form of satire, jokes, caricatures. Telling jokes was considered dangerous, usually people told this sort of jokes in a whisper, in the kitchen, in a circle of close people.

          Censorship in the USSR – preventing the dissemination of ideas that were considered harmful or undesirable, and information that could potentially become a reason for inconvenient allusions. For example, a comedy film could be banned due to the fact that the main villain wears a magnificent mustache and this is an allusion to Stalin!
          It seems to me that Mr. Alex Prentice read Mr. Murray’s fan fiction with exactly the same attitude as if he were a Soviet censor.

          • Tom Welsh

            Tatyana, when my mother was a student – back in the 1930s – she visited Germany, where she studied the language and had many friends.

            One day a group of them were walking and chatting, and as young people do she tried walking along the kerb of the pavement with one foot on the road, giving her an uneven gait.

            As soon as he noticed, one of her friends urgently warned her to stop walking like that. “Why?” she asked innocently.

            “They will say you are mocking Dr Goebbels”.

            People used to disappear for that kind of reason. Permanently.

          • Tatyana

            Tom, I knew you understand what I’m trying to say. Thanks.

            Do you also, like me, find it extremely appalling that a state prosecution looks attentively into fan fiction to find something for jailing the author?

      • Giraffe

        Were those who are upset at the misuse of judicial power against Craig and Julian equally upset when it was used against Tommy Robinson and the Britain First duo?

        • Talltone

          An excellent question, Giraffe, and one which will be ignored by the usual commentators here. The truth is that very, very few people believe in genuine liberty and freedom of expression.

        • Bayard

          Well, they’d have to believe that judicial power was misused against Tommy Robinson and the Britain First duo first.

          I’m quite prepared to believe that the state misused judicial power full stop on the grounds that it has been doing so for centuries, however I know nothing about this particular case.

          • Colin Smith

            Both have had constant police surveillance to attempt to convict them for walking on the cracks in the pavement, any case that does make it is escalated several levels above the normal level for the crime, comes with onerous bail conditions and inexplicable delays, and sentencing is disproportionate to the normal tarrifs.

    • Courtenay Barnett

      Tatyana,

      Good one – for especially in trying times – it helps to have a sense of humour.

      Could never match up to your great Russian joke, but since it is joke telling time – here is a really corny one..

      Did you hear about the man who invented a device to see through walls?
      He called it a window.

      Yuck…yuck..

      • I.M.Pistov

        Courtenay and Tatyana.

        Since we’re onto joke telling.
        Can I share this with you..

        The World Economy Explained With The Aid Of Two Cows

        SOCIALISM You have 2 cows. You give one to your neighbour

        COMMUNISM You have 2 cows The State takes both and gives you some milk.

        FASCISM You have 2 cows. The State takes both and sells you some milk.
        BUREAUCRATISM You have 2 cows. The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other and then throws the milk away.
        TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull. Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows. You sell them and retire on the income.
        VENTURE CAPITALISM You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows. The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company. The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more
        .
        AN AMERICAN CORPORATION You have two cows. You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows. Later, you hire a consultant to analyse why the cow has died.
        A FRENCH CORPORATION You have two cows. You go on strike, organize a riot, and block the roads, because you want three cows.
        AN ITALIAN CORPORATION You have two cows, but you do not know where they are. You decide to have lunch.
        A SWISS CORPORATION You have 5,000 cows. None of them belong to you. You charge the owners for storing them
        A CHINESE CORPORATION You have two cows. You have 300 people milking them. You claim that you have full employment and high bovine productivity. You arrest the newsman who reported the real situation.
        AN INDIAN CORPORATION You have two cows. You worship them.
        A BRITISH CORPORATION You have two cows. Both are mad.
        AN IRAQI CORPORATION Everyone thinks you have lots of cows. You tell them that you have none. Nobody believes you, so they bomb the crap out of you and invade your country. You still have no cows but at least you are now a Democracy.
        AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION You have two cows. Business seems pretty good. You close the office and go for a few beers to celebrate.
        A GREEK CORPORATION You have two cows borrowed from French and German banks. Your people need to eat eat both of them. The banks call to collect their milk, but you cannot deliver so you call the IMF. The IMF loans you two cows. Your people eat both of them. The banks and the IMF
        call to collect their cows/milk. You are out getting a haircut.
        AN IRISH CORPORATION You have two cows One of them’s a horse!
        And Last But Not Least
        A SCOTTISH CORPORATION You have two cows that you think are valuable and worth a lot of money but your neighbour tells you they are past their best and definitely won’t last for very much longer.He even utilises experts to confirm all this.. This makes you sad, dejected and unable to perform to your full potential. Then unable to take the misery any more, you decide, as a last resort, to move somewhere else.and try something new. Lo and behold your new neighbour tells you your cows are very valuable and will provide milk for years and years.and years You are now a happy bunny once more

  • N_

    Important (never mind that it’s only the Daily Express): “Nicola Sturgeon: The murky end to the SNP chief’s legal career

    Is this the first snowball of the avalanche?

    EXCLUSIVE – NICOLA Sturgeon’s legal career ended under a cloud as she was investigated for professional misconduct, it can be disclosed today.

    The SNP leader was eventually cleared by the Scottish Law Society more than 14 months after a complaint was made by a victim of domestic abuse.
    The complaint against Ms Sturgeon was brought by a battered wife who turned to the newly-qualified solicitor for help after years of abuse at the hands of her husband.
    Ms Sturgeon was working at Stirling law firm Bell & Craig when the client – now a grandmother in her 60s – first sought her help in July 1996.
    Over the next 14 months, despite the woman being followed, threatened and physically attacked, it was claimed Ms Sturgeon did not seek a court order against her violent partner.
    The client also alleged that Ms Sturgeon failed to send off her legal aid application – despite claiming that she had done so.
    After Ms Sturgeon left the firm for a new job in Glasgow, the unsent application was discovered in the client’s file by her new solicitor, Cath Dowdalls, now a QC.

    In stark contrast to Ms Sturgeon’s inaction, Ms Dowdalls immediately secured both legal aid and an interdict with power of arrest against the husband – ending his stalking and threats.
    The client wrote to the Law Society in November 1997, saying: ‘I sincerely hope that you look into this case as I certainly would not wish Ms Sturgeon to ill advise further matrimonial cases which she is clearly not capable of dealing with.’

    ‘I feel as if I have been trailed through over a year of ill advice and wasted time.’

    The following month, the client’s outstanding fees totalling £542 were waived by Bell & Craig as a ‘goodwill gesture’.

    A year later, in December 1998, the Law Society sent the client a five-page report which stated that her complaint would be investigated in the professional misconduct category. The three individual allegations were failing to raise the interim interdict against the ex-husband, misleading the client about the legal aid application and failing to properly take her financial circumstances into account.

    Ms Sturgeon was eventually cleared by the Law Society in April 1999, although the client no longer has the decision letter.

    A Law Society spokeswoman said: ‘There was a complaint which was investigated but it was not upheld.’

    The decision came just weeks before Ms Sturgeon gave up law and was elected as a list MSP in Glasgow for the SNP in the first Holyrood election.

    Last night, the client said her decision to finally speak out after more than 20 years had been triggered by her outrage over the Salmond affair.“

    This is how Nicola Sturgeon treats women who are REAL victims of abuse.

    • N_

      I’d like to know what the Scottish Law Society’s reasons were for not upholding the complaint, when we have it stated very clearly in this article that Sturgeon did NOT send off her client’s legal aid application and that the unsent application was discovered by her client’s subsequent solicitor who then secured legal aid right away. It sounds as though some deceitful wriggling was done, because if Sturgeon told her client she would send it off and then she didn’t she should have been found guilty of misconduct. But it seems that two of the three points of the complaint were “misleading the client about the legal aid application” and “failing to properly take her financial circumstances into account”. Makes you wonder whether someone may have slightly altered the complaint so that Sturgeon could be cleared.

      More digging should be done… Who at the SLS considered the complaint? Etc.

      Who was the abusing husband or ex-husband in this case, I wonder… What connections? Or maybe Sturgeon has some kind of gut hatred for all women she can’t connive with or use?

      • N_

        More info is here.
        The person who considered the complaint against Nicola Sturgeon for the Scottish Law Society was Olga Pasportnikov, who now sits on the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service Board alongside Leeona Dorrian.

        In 2019 Pasportnikov, acting as a sheriff, handed convicted paedophile Matthew McCourt a non-custodial sentence for possessing indecent images of children. McCourt had previously been jailed for 34 months for committing offences against two children, including a primary school pupil. The ages of the children in the indecent images ranged from one to 15. Pasportnikov said that sending him to jail had had “no effect”. Clearly she wasn’t thinking about the obvious fact that he was not (one hopes) able to abuse children when he was in jail, nor (one also hopes) able to access indecent images of children during that time either. Does she not understand what prison is for?

        • Goose

          Don’t expect this to damage her reputation?

          Her most loyal supporters would just say it provides an explanation as to why she reacted as she did (overreacted?) to accusations against Salmond.

          • JeremyT

            Just as they”‘ll accept that she didn’t ‘deliberately’ lie in breaking the ministerial code?

      • Vivian O'Blivion

        Mibee the missing £600k will be her downfall. A widnae haud ma breath. The COPFS refuse to authorise a perjury investigation by Polis Scotland into the dinner party guest that never was. Regardless the content of the Polis, Fraud squad report, it’s destined for the recycling receptical.

    • Goose

      Yep just watched it. Good interview.

      I wonder whether Alba will be able to drive that message Craig presented home over the next month or so; namely, that a second SNP vote for the list, is a diluted vote compared to casting a full strength vote for Alba? SNP supporters will hopefully overcome any silly tribalism and realise what they could be on the cusp of here in building a supermajority for independence. If they can, the election could prove to be something seismic.

        • Goose

          I know it usually denotes two thirds which would be ~ 86 MSPs (pro-inde), but it’s being bandied around in a more general sense – optimistic – so basically any comfortable pro-independence majority.

        • mark golding

          The Declaration of Arbroath is the name usually given to a letter, dated 6 April 1320 at Arbroath, written by Scottish barons and addressed to Pope John XXII.The letter asserted the antiquity of the independence of the Kingdom of Scotland, denouncing English attempts to subjugate it.

    • nevermind

      you have to wait for 5 minutes to watch it, its called {rescheduled}. Is that a u tube wheeze to stop you watching it?

    • Franc

      I’m sure that I’m not alone in this, but I cannot get into the Utube video. Message says, ” Sorry for the interruption. We have been receiving a large volume of requests from your network……”
      In other words it looks like I’m being blocked!

  • John LEON

    I read the account of Alexander Mercouris on your case. I watch his vlogs and find he gives very precise and level headed analysis.
    I am under no illusion to the corruption at the highest levels which render both the Scottish and English legal systems to the level of banana republic.
    The acrid stench of corruption permeates everywhere in this case as it fuels the ethos of the supine cowards surrendering gleefully to their faux emotions, thereby trumping any ethics by the people involved.
    IMO this whole theatre has also been co-ordinated by people in Whitehall to kill two birds with one stone and as punishment for your integrity in exposing how the FCO has become so vile.

  • DavidH

    Nice article – clear and balanced.

    Another point that comes to mind about that “objective test” for jigsaw identification.

    If the test is entirely divorced from any intention or actual harm that could be shown. And it depends not only on what the writer wrote, but also what anyone potentially identifying the witness already knew or could have known from other sources. Then it becomes very difficult for a writer to actually apply this test to themselves as they are writing, and reliably avoid breaking the law.

    Ignorance of the law is no excuse, obviously, but the law at least needs to be clear enough that a normal person could know for themselves whether or not any course of action would be illegal. If not, then how can people be expected to follow it?

    This lack of clarity favors those established journalists at major media outlets who have a team of lawyers on hand to keep them within the legal boundaries and the “accepted” narrative. And unfairly penalizes those independent writers who may have something less mainstream to say.

  • nevermind

    just watched the interview with Mark Mc Naught. Thanks for explaining why you have not joined Alba at present, there is still time at a later date, when you have been vindicated and a free man again.
    I feel positive about Scotland’s future prospects on their own and I hope that you might persuade Alba to come to DTRH for a talk on Independence.

  • Theophilus

    “It is very difficult for me to try to explain why, in my own case, what has happened has much wider bad consequences, because it simply looks like special pleading.”

    Don’t worry son, those of us that have been paying attention are not surprised nor do they need an explanation least of all from the victim of these shennanigans. The trouble is the percentage of us within the population of the UK is not enormous. Commenting on one of your brilliantly revealing Skripal articles, I warned you to take great care because you had revealed the truth and that those behind the scam had neither honour, nor shame. I don’t want to depress you but think yourself lucky that your name is not Milosovic, Saddam Hussein, Gadaafi or even Chavez.
    The suffocating subservience of the Western legacy media has to be countered and you are doing it but you cannot do it on your own. Across the Channel the on-line news site France Soir, despite threats of censorship from the government, is gradually establishing itself as a considerable stone in the governemntal shoe particularly in relation to the scandalous blocking of successful, safe, cheap treatments for Covid. France Soir was founded as a voice for the resistance movement in 1944. That is what is needed here.
    Good luck anyway in your struggle with the crooks, fellow travellers and doormats that make up the Scottish establishment but get organised and look for allies.

  • Marmite

    Lawlessness and the criminality of power in Britain need to exposed at every corner, all the time and relentlessly. Today, a contempt of court judgment can only mean that one has been exposing this criminality. We need more brave people standing up to the criminals leading a country where there is one law for some and another law for others, where laws apply or don’t apply on the basis of your gender or race or belief or species or sexuality, rather than on the fact that you are just you.

  • TJ

    I find it hilarious that someone who has supported the SNP in all it’s tyrannical actions and mendacity and continues to this day to deny the democratic referendum where the Scottish people voted to remain part of the UK is now crying foul over his treatment. You remind me of one of Stalin’s henchmen who when sent to the Gulag in a purge protests his innocence.

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