UPDATE I today received a prison sentence of eight months for my reporting of the defence case in the Alex Salmond trial. I have a three week stay while we apply to this same court for permission to appeal to the Supreme Court. My appeal will be based on the simple fact that I did not identify anybody. It will also be based on the right to report the defence case being denied by an extraordinary, impossibly strict application of “jigsaw identification”, and on fair process not having been observed.
Should this court refuse permission to appeal, which seems not unlikely, I will in all probability be jailed while we apply direct to the Supreme Court for permission, which will take some months.
I am afraid I find myself once again obliged to ask you for funding for the appeal. We have raised about £70,000 but are likely to need, at the least, double that.
UPDATE The defence fund has received £46,520 in the 24 hours since it was relaunched to fund the appeal to the Supreme Court. That does not get us there, but it is a good start on our way as the appeal continues. Over 2,000 people have donated, with the smallest donation being 82p and the largest £1,000. Every penny is greatly appreciated. I should make plain that despite the astronomical costs, some members of our legal team have been working substantially below their normal rates and with time donated free.
One donation of £500 from a gentleman I know, came with a note that explained that Willie MacRae had lent him £100 shortly before his highly suspect death. He regarded the £500 as repaying that debt, and was sure Willie would approve of the use of his money. That brought tears to my eyes.
UPDATE ENDS
On Friday I shall be sentenced, very possibly to prison, for contempt of court by “jigsaw identification”. While I do not believe anybody has ever been imprisoned for “jigsaw identification” before, my entire prosecution has been so perverse that I cannot imagine why they have done it unless that is the intention.
With enormous diffidence and frankly embarrassment, I find myself yet again obliged to ask people to contribute towards my defence fund before my hearing next Friday, to enable us to move forward with an appeal to the Supreme Court. Legal bills actually paid to date amount to £161,000, with about eight thousand not billed yet. Non-legal costs, including the opinion poll, total around £9,000. The total raised by the defence fund to date is around £143,000 with the balance of around £18,000 paid so far having come from my personal pocket.
The practical result of the judgement against me is that it is virtually impossible to report the defence in any sexual allegation case; as witness the fact that I was ordered by the court to take down every single word of my articles covering the defence case and evidence.
The judges ruled that publishing any information that could theoretically assist not the public, but literally a colleague who worked in the same office, to identify a complainant, would constitute jigsaw identification. They also ruled that jigsaw identification was committed if you gave a piece of information which could identify a complainant in conjunction with information that could be found anywhere else, no matter how obscure. For example, if information from page 19 of the Inverurie Herald six years ago, combined with information from page 178 of a book, combined with something I published could lead to an identification, I am guilty regardless of whether or not anybody did in practice actually piece together these obscure sources of information.
In fact the court heard nothing that would pass as evidence in court that any individual had in fact identified anybody as a result of my articles. There was zero evidence of harm. What has been harmful is the gross censorship of my journalism, with my entire daily account of the defence case removed, and my critique of the Garavelli article removed. In consequence, it is once again virtually impossible for anybody to discover WHY Alex Salmond was acquitted, enabling the massive state and media led campaign to claim he was really guilty – which sadly appears, with the counter-narrative banned, to have acquired great traction.
You will recall that I commissioned a Panelbase opinion poll which proved that a significant 8% of the Scottish population – that is around 400,000 adults – believed they had been able to identify one or more of the complainants in the Salmond case from publication, but when asked stated that the source of this caption was overwhelmingly the mainstream media.
Well I decided to re-run the opinion poll to see if anything had changed. These were the results. 11% of the Scottish adult population – that is half a million adults – by now believe they know an identity. This is how they know:
It is perfectly clear and entirely consistent with the first poll. 54% of people who believe they know an identity got their information from the newspapers. 27% got it from TV and radio (there may be overlap between these groups).
Yet no newspaper or TV journalist or editor is being prosecuted.
Not even Dani Garavelli, who is overwhelmingly named as the source of information – by fifteen different people – is being prosecuted.
So let us be perfectly clear. The three top sources named for identification were
Dani Garavelli – by a country mile
Kirsty Wark
BBC
None of whom is being prosecuted. Garavelli has published an entire series of major articles amplifying the prosecution case against Salmond, in Tortoise media, twice in Scotland on Sunday and in the London Review of Books, plus many other well paid commissions. She has effectively made a fat living out of an entirely one-sided account that claims miscarriage of justice simply by omitting all the defence evidence. In so doing she has plainly been much more credibly guilty of jigsaw identification than I. On the other hand, my long critique of Garavelli’s first Scotland on Sunday article, which interpolated the defence evidence which contradicted her account and proved that the jury was right, has now been banned, censored and desroyed by the court, the 21st century equivalent of burning the manuscript in the public square.
Garavelli has gone on to become media-puppet-in-chief to the Scottish government, producing a stream of adulatory articles about Nicola Sturgeon like this one about what a great constituency MSP Sturgeon is, which is (ahem) somewhat contrary to received wisdom.
Garavelli is protected because she is part of the inner circle, while I am prosecuted, when the mainstream media is not, because I am an opponent of the corrupt nexus of power that governs Scotland today. The official line is that through enthusiasm for Salmond’s cause I revealed information to the public that the mainstream media did not. That is a fiction the Scottish legal system has chosen to adopt, and for which I will be sentenced on Friday.
All the real world evidence shows that is untrue. I revealed far less than the mainstream media revealed. This is a shameless and openly political prosecution of one of the very few platforms of any size which explained the truth about why Alex Salmond was acquitted by the jury. That is my “crime”.
We have to get this out of the foetid corruption of Edinburgh and into Strasbourg. That is only possible via the UK Supreme Court, and my legal team are now working on that appeal. I urge you to subscribe not only because of the particular injustice of my own case, but also because this ruling puts a huge power in the hands of the state by making it next to impossible to report the defence in cases of sexual allegation. As such allegations are the favoured tool of the state against perceived dissident threats (cf Julian Assange), this is very dangerous indeed.
You can contribute to my defence fund here. I am extremely grateful to those who have and I want to stress that I absolutely do not want anybody to contribute if it causes them even the slightest financial difficulty. I am afraid to say that the amounts we need to raise remain ridiculous; this fact is of course all part of the implementation of suppression, by “lawfare”.
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Welcome to independence!
That’s a Galloway-esque counsel of despair and what’s more, likely wrong.
An Independent Scotland is going to be subject to Constitutional(incl. judicial) / Democratic reform. Most of the issues relating to Salmond and by extension, Craig Murray, could be due to upsetting powerful figures in the UK establishment. And the Scottish civil service and judiciary – from where the issues involving both originate – is still very much wedded and a part of UK infrastructure; very, very pro-unionist. Suggesting this is a vision of a future independent Scotland, completely omits this reality.
Donation made. This case must be heard by judges who are not in the pocket of the vindictive Sturgeon. To see their judgement overturned would be sweet on many levels, not least for how sickening it would be for Nicola and the liberal Great and Good. If Dorian does force you to appeal direct to the SC and it takes months,.so be it. You seem the kind of guy who could do a few months standing on his head and return with many an astute observations and uproarious tale.
Sarge,
As I see it, there is no such thing as an independent scottish judge. ALL scottish judges are in the employ of the scottish Government, and will do what they are told.
I have asked how far a scottish judge’s writ runs south of the border, but no-one seems to know. Do you?
The appeal will be to the Supreme Court in London. Unlikely you would think to be awed by a Sturgeon judge. Although if Sturgeon really does have handlers in Vauxhall, as has been speculated, who knows how far they will go to prevent her being exposed or embarrassed.
The irony is that “someone” has been briefing the media that there will be a big case at the British Supreme Court regarding a second independence referendum – a court battle between the Scottish and British governments.
Why should there be a judicial review of a Britgov refusal to grant a s30 request? All the British government would have to do would be to get the support of the
Tory leadershipBritish parliament and the court would back out. There is some “deep politics” going on here…Sarge, thanks for your reply, which I understand confirms the idea that the two jusisdictions only come together at the supreme court level.
So to take a practical example, where someone living in England expresses an opinion of a Scottish court that said court finds is a contempt and hands down a two-month sentence, how can that Scottish court enforce such a judgement in an English jurisdiction?
@Sarge,
The Scottish judiciary, just like the civil service, is staunchly unionist.
Why keep putting everything that’s happened on the SNP ? The idea Sturgeon is somehow micromanaging judges is ridiculous.
She selects them, why are you trying to pretend otherwise? I guess you think she has no role in this persecution of Craig and the attempt to fit up Alex Salmond?
I’m saying it’s probably more complex than the base motive you assign to one person. The whole system has pro-unionism baked in. The judiciaries in England and Scotland are very, big ‘C’ ,conservative. Sturgeon may have a role, or be being influenced, but it isn’t just her.
In reply to Goose,
As this whole affair is based on this particular court case it seems difficult to think that the present leadership of the SNP is not involved just a little bit, doesn’t it? And I have no particular axe to grind directly. I feel concerned by the implications concerning freedom to report and freedom of speech and what seems to be an enormous injustice – 8 months seems totally disproportionate, a warning to others who may think of going against the system. Like the Assage affair which is an even worse warning, the destruction of this man’s life amounts to pure terrorism. it makes me feel as if Britain is on course that makes one feel uneasy, to put it mildly…. and I say Britain as clearly North or South of the border things are just as putrid, it’s not exactly an argument in favour of independence either. (could that maybe be not purely coincidental?)
Looking at the sums of money required even to defend Craig Murray and Julian Assange it necessarily makes anyone think twice before getting involved in legitimate contestation that goes against the interests of the powerful or rich, it is simply political terrorism.
@Goose – Can you say more about the judiciary being staunchly unionist? The base level is that the state at the moment is the union, and therefore they are unionist. What more is there than that?
Also by “staunch” do you mean they are a bunch of bluenoses? (That may well also be true and probably is.)
@TonyN – some gory details about cross-border police and judicial procedures inside Britain are here.
They are different jurisdictions but there is also an over-arching jurisdiction. It is not like extradition where a person cannot be extradited from a country for an alleged action that is not an offence in that country.
Alex Salmond whatever anyone may think of his politicking or other actions is a complete and utter dirty b*stard for not defending Craig in public, Craig who is being judicially persecuted for legitimate reporting of Salmond’s defence case. Shameful and dishonourable. He should have been in the public gallery. Look after people who look after you.
N_N_N_Nurrrsssse , he’s having a moment again!
How exactly is the Oxygen of publicity deprived victim of the same injustice supposed to say anything that would be reported?
What public gallery???
Get a grip and don’t keep skipping your meds – the nurse is overworked as it is.
salmond should have condemned what is being done to craig murray. end of.
I agree that Salmond should have condemned this. I understand that he may well be afraid of being jailed himself if he does (it’s not like the Scottish judiciary is following the law these days when the law doesn’t suit them).
I think you put that rather well.
This is one of those rare occasions where I agree with N_. I think Alex Salmond should make some show of support or at least say something to the disproportionality of the sentence. It doesn’t have to be on MSM. Does he have a twitter account?
CM put his neck on the block so that people could see the provenance of the accusations against Alex Salmond. Better yet, a large donation the the appeal funds.
Thanks for that link on cross-border judicial procedures.
It seems on the face of it that a writ from a Scottish court can be served in England and Wales.
If this is so, then the lack of separation of powers means that for example Sturgeon & co. can effectively order the imprisonment of anyone in the whole of Britain, at will, as they have done with CM., Salmond, and the others.
If this is indeed the case, stand by for the whole issue to be exposed within Parliament ( the real one, btw) fairly soon, following on from David Davis’s speech.
[PS, it will be interesting to see the reaction of Blackford & pack if it gets to a vote to clip Sturgeon’s wings ]
Salmond didn’t attack Sturgeon for her conspiracy to defame and jail him with a bunch of perjurer mates of hers.
Why?
Salmond hasn’t publicly yet commented on CM’s being attacked for the same case.
Why?
Because it ain’t over till it’s over.
You idiots with your petty gaslighting attempts and agit prop ain’t going to get these big boys and girls of Indy to put a foot wrong as you and your masters hope.
Another score on the way tomorrow in addition to my increased monthly sub.
We will get this to the ECHR and British Justice will be the laughing stock of the world. The judge’s name Mudd and conspirators Jailed.
All costs will be refunded.
Onivar.
How is the question of Salmond’s silence related to “idiots”, “petty gaslighting attempts”, “agit prop”, or “masters”?
“You idiots with your petty gaslighting attempts and agit prop”
Neither of the above in my case. Perhaps there are political chess moves going on that I
am unaware of. Or perhaps not. CM needs support right now. Maybe that is happening privately. Alex Salmond’s defence case is known to the world because of CM. Perhaps it’s a matter of timing and Salmond is waiting until an appeal is definite, but he ought to step up to the plate at some point. Verbally and financialy.
Could you in your wildest imagination perhaps consider that AS and CM and other diffident independent journalists privately communicate? You know like us ordinaries?
And yes it is Chess as much as judo as i have alluded to on events in THIS battle.
Read this and it will help everyone understand the ‘chess board’ better.
https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2021-05-10/media-war-independent-journalism/
DunGroanin writes:
“Could you in your wildest imagination perhaps consider that AS and CM and other diffident independent journalists privately communicate? You know like us ordinaries?”
Far from needing a wild imagination, nothing would seem more natural. Yet, we have this from Craig, on 27 March:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2021/03/what-a-week/comment-page-1/#comment-983943
“I should be delighted to be a candidate for Alba, but I assume as Alex has not asked me, he does not want me to be.
I understand that; he has enough trouble fighting off untrue slurs against himself, without having to fend off untrue slurs against me.”
Perhaps dissidents really are “diffident”! 🙂
I suggest that this could be a good time for an `I am Spartacus’ moment.
I downloaded most of Craig’s articles before the court order which forced him to take them all down and I imagine that there are many who did exactly the same thing.
If those of us who did this start our own blogs and post the pieces by Craig Murray which expose the truth then – well – surely she can’t put us all in jail, can she? And if she does, then we might be able to keep Craig Murray company during his residence at Her Majesty’s Emporium for Excellent Journalists.
Seems to me that this is a better way of supporting Craig than shuffling large sums of money into a bottomless pit, when the court has no intention of listening to the defense arguments anyway.
James,
I have speculated that a logical analysis of all of the MSM/BBC utterances, plus those of the Court, and importantly LESS CMs blog posts, could have revealed sufficient pieces of the ‘jigsaw’, and would also answer the following questions:
I know that such work was supposed to have been undertaken by the court, but this independent analysis would settle lingering doubts.
TonyN – As far as I am concerned, (a) I STILL have no idea who the women in question actually were (I don’t mix in the circles where people are `in the know’) and (b) Craig Murray’s writing was the *ONLY* source of good information, which gave me some understanding of what was going on (and it didn’t reveal the identities to me).
I shouldn’t say `only’ – all due credit to Grouse Beater who gave a good account of the trial, but it left out some important information, which appeared in Craig Murray’s account.
The acid test: people who didn’t read Craig Murray all thought that Alex Salmond would be found guilty and were very surprised when he was acquitted; people who read Craig Murray’s account had the understanding and insight to see that they should put their money on acquittal.
In her judgement, Lady Dorrian couldn’t point to an account which, in her opinion, gave the background and insight without helping to identify the characters, because such an account doesn’t exist.
James Riddle
The Lady Dorrian, as Ian rightly points out below, takes a high and mighty position that while she is able to contain what she knows in her own brain bladder, others , including Craig were bursting to blab it all out and were unable to keep their silence.
As a man who is fasting while posting comments on a blog, I’d like to say that so long as our common enemies, integrity initiative, Belling cat etc are making war on truth, we should be fighting back. If they stop , we stop.
But if they put us under curfew while themselves working day and night to pervert the truth, we have an equal right as them to speak out.
In other words they started it. In order to expose their lies , we have to expose them. This is not just now, but in petpetuity. I declare that so long as the PTB pervert the truth, then night and day 24/7 , 365 days a year, we will be morally obliged to challenge their lies.
Even if that exposes other facts they want to be kept secret. They have to get it into their little heads that this our right and we will.not be silenced.
If they stop lying, then we will have no reason to talk about what they want kept secret. End of.
Giyane – OK – as I said – we simply take Craig Murray’s pieces, which he was ordered to take down, and post them on our own web pages / blogs.
If, say, 100 people did that, would she be able to put us *all* in jail? Actually, I wouldn’t put it past her …..
Of course, it would be really nice if she got – well, it would probably be ill advised of me to state what should happen to her.
What’s the point?
https://web.archive.org/web/20200701000000*/https://www.craigmurray.org.uk
I, for one, would like to thank you for that, because I had been laboriously pasting URLs of individual blog posts into the Wayback Machine, and wondering if I should or shouldn’t ask if there was a way of obtaining a complete list of the URLs of all the deleted posts. Thanks for making me feel stupid! 🙂
Yes I also haven’t a clue and always read all postings. Craig could you please let me know!!!
It’s always going to be difficult to report accurately on a case like this, because to do so requires that people understand not the names of the complainers, which won’t mean anything to most people, but the network which some of the principals are involved in. We know, from the notorious ‘I have a plan’ tweet, that the well intended guarantee of anonymity was used as a cloak to hide exactly this most nefarious of facts from the public. It is further reinforce by the extraordinary PR push to keep the ‘anonymous’ complainers in the media eye and their ‘suffering’ – why would that happen, except for very political reasons? If anonymity is the guarantee to keep women out of the public eye, then it is an extraordinary move to keep them in the public eye with repeated testimonies and pleas, none of which we know anything the truth or otherwise of. Particularly as a jury of mostly women found no evidence of their claims, and which Craig’s factual account of the trial, now censored, revealed as a hotch potch of wild exaggeration, faulty memory, coaching and in the worst case an outright lie. That is what Dorrian and co apparently want to expunge from the record. And this vexed used of anonymity is the method to do so.
One of the (many) false claims about this issue is that someone like Craig will deter other women from coming forward. This is nonsense. What will deter women is the callous way that some of them in this case were dragooned into a court case, against their will. That would put anyone off. Most women will also agree that the purpose of anonymity is to achieve justice. Yet the Alex Salmond case achieved justice despite it, and the most concerning details which had huge political significance, were obscured under this device. Craig sought to alert to this, without naming the individuals. It is a fine line, but there is no doubt from his statements that it was done to service justice and the public interest. Dorrian deliberately misrepresented that, as well as smearing and mocking it, in order to keep those issues, which were never about identity or deterring future cases, under wraps.
Craig obviously needled her, because he cleverly used the case against him to make clear the iniquity of the entire farce against Salmond, a political maneouvre and not the scandal it was framed as. She is piqued at his courage and straight talking, and has resorted to personal insults, as well as wild speculation, quite wrongly about his motives, in order to suit her narrative. None of this has a place in a court of law, because it is based on speculation and pseudo psychological interpretation. Especially when, as we know, others were far worse in letting the public know who the ‘aggrieved’ were. An objective appeal court would see the nature of her personal antipathy towards Craig and dismiss it out of court, particularly on the grounds that not a scrap of evidence has been produced for her claims about identification or Craig’s state of mind. He has drawn blood and she has hit back, which is no basis for legal decisions.
PS in addition to the evidence of her personal feelings and attitude affecting her judgement, and thus invalidating it, she made a claim that Craig was presenting the facts, in his own interpretation, as ‘the truth’, which clearly outraged her.
Yes, this is what bloggers do, thousands of them every day, as do journalists, commentators and people in the pub. That she should claim there is something invidious in that, while she exercises her own interpretation and claims it has a higher status than Craig’s or anybody else’s is a philosophical question she is clearly not equipped to answer, since she just assumes she alone has access to ‘truth’.
Just another reason to reject her heated and biased judgement, which is so full of holes false logic and spurious speculation that it is a travesty of truth and law.
^ Great posts Ian,thank you.
Ian,
Excellent post.
As time is of the essence, we can but hope that an exposure under UK parliamentary privilege will at least put Dorrian & Co. on the spot.
My own concern, residing under english jurisdiction, is that any comment that I make that was deemed a contempt of scottish court by a scottish court, the sentence could be applied in england. I have raised this question on this and other blogs, but answers have not been forthcoming.
It is obvious that if such a situation is indeed the case, it was publicised in the UK MSM, one could expect a massive uproar across the whole of the UK, with momentous consequences not least for CM, and also for the devolved governments
Would you care to comment?
I’m not a lawyer, but the UK is one country. IMHO a contempt of court could catch up with the offender anywhere in the UK.
Great posts! I don’t know how much she is convinced that her asserted “truth” is actually true; liars seem to manage to convince themselves their self serving lies are true, sometimes.
What can save our sad decline and fall, is the simple promotion of Truth. The cretins in power and in control, claim to be patriotic, yet their actions are are dismantling our institutions, built up over generations to govern with efficiency and a semblance of democratic legitimacy. Today we see more brazen corruption in public life. Jullian Assange, Craig Murray and very few remain to shout down to the villagers that the wolves are coming. The villagers are so busy in their entertainments and consumption of so called news, only annoyed at the “other” and wanting to go on their holidays. Not giving a toss about Jullian or Craig or Gaza being pummeled to rubble yet again.
“is the simple promotion of the truth”
In the current media? Good luck with that.
In this perverse world we now live in, it is the MSM that decides what ‘truth’ is and what ‘truth’ we are allowed to see.
Without the alternative media there is absolutely nowhere for the actual truth to be promoted. The objective of Governments is to close down alternative media sources so that they can carry on lying, stealing, imprisoning, murdering and torturing as they see fit and with no interference from the electorate.
The big question is: ‘does the media control government or does government control media’ ? Or maybe it’s some establishment cabal that controls them all.
Ian
In short, whoever decided to force the women to take their very weak accusations to the police has removed their privacy. Huh. That stupid word, privacy. How many times every day we read ‘we value your privacy’ before corporate big brother swallows the lot?
Not much privacy in people knowing the accusations without the identities, like the naked swimmers who used their newspapers to hide their faces from passers by.
Google told me today that by law I have to add my birth date to my details. Ostensibly to assist personalisation, but in fact to verify that comments sent from my phone are mine.
As a society we are slowly being driven towards no privacy, like the communal toilets in Rome. The PTB have the thankless task of pretending to maintain the pretence of personal privacy, while being able to listen to and see everything we said or did. Which hurts their dignity . And it annoys them that we can read their minds without spying, simply by analysing their words.
I think it is just as hard for those who aspire to manage people to have to pretend that life still has privacy, as it is for us to live life normally knowing there is no privacy. We end up playing cat and mouse whereby we can feed those who think they are invisible , stuff which we know will annoy them, and they have to eat it, because that’s their job.
“Google told me today that by law I have to add my birth date to my details. Ostensibly to assist personalisation, but in fact to verify that comments sent from my phone are mine”.
Shortly after you give Google such details, they will be for sale (cheaply) online. Then criminals will be able to impersonate you even more plausibly than before. It’s a bit like the arguments that were advanced for arming the police.
Thank God I have no account with Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Microsoft or any such.
You know you could just give a false DOB?
Stop using google where you can. I know that is pretty much impossible if you have an android phone but on any other device you can.
https://restoreprivacy.com/
Ian, thank you, very well said.
Re: anonymity of the complainers. Some of my thoughts and questions.
On what basis does that case even qualify as a sexual assault case? Is there normally a preliminary review of the materials, before the trial? Or is it enough that the complainants say so?
In the latter case, this is a serious flaw in the entire judicial system. Just imagine what a high-profile case could be cooked up if Mr. Salmond (sorry) farted in the elevator.
Ex prime minister is accused of organizing a chemical attack !!! Mass casualties right in the center of Edinburgh !!!
Seriously, I mean that any interpretation of actions must have reasonable logical limits. I find it ridiculous to regard posing for photography as a sexual act. The same goes for the hair joke and the touch on the cheek to wake up. This is obvious to anyone who graduates from school, because the school course includes the basics of biology and sexual education.
It is impossible to assume that all the accusers were young, uneducated girls.
Mr. Salmond’s actions may be unpleasant, annoying, inappropriate, but it was certainly NOT a sexual assault. Or, do all accusers consider themselves to be such irresistable sex-appealing Divas that male colleagues necessarily feel desire when around them?
Then, what a pity that the court protects their anonymity! I am burning with curiosity to see this flower garden of paradise hourias!
“One of the (many) false claims about this issue is that someone like Craig will deter other women from coming forward”.
That is nonsense for another, more fundamental reason. How can I put this without the risk of hurting anyone’s feelings? The women (are we allowed to know that they were all women? If so, why?) accused Mr Salmond of various illegal acts, but the jury did not find their accusations credible and therefore acquitted Mr Salmond.
To my mind, the inescapable implication is that they lied. Moreover, they conspired to lie, with the explicit purpose of having Mr Salmond imprisoned for a very long time. In my innocence, I assumed that although the court had given them the privilege of anonymity during the trial, that anonymity would automatically be withdrawn when they were prosecuted for perjury.
Yet they weren’t prosecuted for perjury; nor was the blanket of anonymity withdrawn. I even saw a comment on this blog stating that the verdit of the court was immaterial, and that the women were to be presumed truthful and Mr Salmond’s acquittal a miscarriage of justice. In other words, that the accusers were the real victims.
According to The Telegraph today, Lady Dorrian said that “The European Court on Human Rights noted that criminal proceedings concerning sexual offences are often conceived of as an ordeal by the victim”.
Although not exactly the same as saying the accusers in the Salmond case were truthful and were indeed victims, that is as close as one could possibly get to saying that while maintaining a degree of plausible deniability.
What is the point of holding a trial, when the accusers are nevertheless considered to be “victims” and the accused – even after his acquittal – to be a criminal?
Tom, I believe your reasoning is correct. I can clearly see how the judge held Mr. Murray responsible for hypothetical harm that could potentially arise. Controversial, shaky and one-sided ruling, because it protects women who even put forward false accusations, but does not protect men against whom such accusations are made.
But I am not a judge, just a simple person, so my question is also simple:
In your country and according to your legislation, WHO IS AUTHORIZED to qualify a case? Who is the person who decides whether this case will be called “sexual harassment” or the title will be “noncompliance with corporate ethics with colleagues”? Can you answer?
Tatyana, I have no legal qualifications or knowledge. However, I think that in most countries criminal cases are brought forward by a public prosecutor who works for the government. (One of the biggest – I think deliberate – loopholes in the UK system is that the prosecutor can choose to prosecute or not do so, without giving any particular reasons).
I believe that, compared with “Napoleonic Code” legal systems, the British and US justice systems give prosecutors a lot more discretion as to when they bring charges, and what those charges are. This article seems instructive: https://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/12/david-hathaway/that-pesky-napoleonic-code/
Can anyone better qualified answer Tatyana’s question?
I believe that if it’s true that all people are equal, then the court should not allow anyone to name any names – neither the complainant nor the accused – at least until the moment of the verdict. It would be fair.
If it were so, all that the general public would have learned in the end is that someone put some uknown accusations against some gentleman, but the jury did not find it a crime. Simple, right?
No harmful disclosures of anonymity, no high-profile scandals, no exorbitant fees for lawyers and journalists.
* The freed up finance and effort could be forwarded to e.g. healthcare. Isn’t it wonderful? It is!
I bet, I would be a better queen 🙂 *
It occurs to me that the whole principle of anonymity for accusers strikes at the root of any fair system of justice. As we have seen during the whole of this Salmond-Murray epic, the effect is to shroud legal proceedings that are of vital and general interest to the public in a black veil of secrecy.
“Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman”.
— US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis (1856-1941)
It’s one thing to make an anonymity exception for rape cases based on the argument that there is empirical evidence that without anonymity victims won’t come forward. I don’t know if that is proven but I can see that it’s very arguable and likely to be true. It’s another thing to extend that anonymity to far lesser allegations. And then there is also the political context – difficult to see how that can be ignored ie surely sometimes public interest should trump the complainant’s right to anonymity?
Yes in the context of the trial outcome Lady Dorrian’s comments can easily be interpreted as encouraging women to make false allegations against any man they dislike.
Crispa
In Salmond ‘s case it was 2 men who disliked the man, probably for his deep integrity and ability to function in realpolitik without sacrificing his principles.
Those 2 men are building a legal system for Scotland in which dog whistle smear campaigns overrule factual evidence and the independence of the judiciary is overruled by the Scottish government.
Justice by mob or tyrant rule will never be justice. The women are pawns in a dirty manipulative game. Sturgeon included
“Yet they weren’t prosecuted for perjury; nor was the blanket of anonymity withdrawn.”
Most of the witnesses told the truth but that truth did not amount to a criminal event as far as the jury were concerned (I seem to recall, though I may be wrong).
Many Female defence witnesses gave testimony .
Their testimony together with other significant evidence was believed by a predominantly female Jury .. the anonymity order has been weaponised .. The Complainers are now involved in a malicious smear and slur campaign against AS .. Yet .. no Appeal ? Strange but true .
I am struggling to see how the allegations were deemed sexual assault and reached the evidential threshold .. I agree with AS QC “ something smells”
Johny
You are wrong.
Johny is probably a girl.
IMHO the way you see it is the only, rational, logical way to interpret CM case.
I am in “disdain” of that Court Officer.
Excellent, Ian (14.40 and 14.45): thank you for spelling it out. This woman has no place presiding in a court of law.
An excellent piece by Philip Roddis at http://steelcityscribblings.uk/ – “Missing Pieces: The Trial of Craig Murray”
Craig showing he’s a true gentleman again by being concerned for others – those in Gaza – at this difficult time.
The UK media diabolical as ever. Portraying it as a “full-scale war ” is a Nazification. It’s like saying the Jewish ghettos in German occupied Poland were in a full-scale war with the Wehrmacht – the implication being it was somehow a fair fight.
Aren’t the Israelis brave, using the most advanced drones and warplanes to attack a poverty-stricken people densely packed into Gaza – like shooting fish in a barrel. This all started because of the forced evictions. And Israeli courts are about as likely to side with Palestinians in upholding their East Jerusalem property rights, as South African courts were to uphold the rights of blacks at the height of apartheid.
Expect no criticism from the UK or US though, both would’ve supported Goliath over David.
…. and I’d also be somewhat surprised to hear much in the way of criticism coming from Nicola Sturgeon.
Could be cynical, cold calculation News Group Newspapers, who owns the the Scottish Sun?
Politicians wouldn’t be that shallow? ….Wanna bet.
She has a longstanding weakness for US war criminals, so probably safe to assume she shares their affection for the IDF.
I recall CM saying he had been told SNP MPs and MSPs had lately been instructed not to express solidarity with Palestinians
It has to be acknowledged that any expression of solidarity would be misrepresented as blanket support for Hamas. Because the people who control our media are so blindly supportive of Israel. They are the gatekeepers and we aren’t allowed to have a rational debate in the UK or US.
Corbyn’s horrendous mistreatment being an example of the character assassination by media that awaits anyone prepared to raise concerns.
Goose
I fully agree with Craig’s total rejection of ” both sides to blame ” in the Trumpian white supremacy meaning.
But the Qur’an teaches us that not all Jews are the same and not all Christians are the same
Some of them believe in God alone and condemn evil and enjoin the good.
Millions of Muslims on the other hand will go to the graves of pious people and ask them to intervene with God on their behalf. Which is absolutely forbidden in Islam.
Hamas is not necessarily in the right just because it is Palestinian.
It would only be in the right if it intellectually followed the teaching of the Qur’an and used the Qur’an as a basis for its politics.
When Hamas sends a rocket into Israel how does it know if it is not going to land on a pious , righteous Jew? Anti semitism is not distinguishing between the pious and the wrongdoers and making alliances with the wrongdoers in government instead of making alliances with the pious and righteous Jews who hate the violence.
Political Islam is very much part of the problem , because all politicians accept lies instead of challenging them intellectually. There is no.place for anti- semitism in Palestinian politics. Many Jews strongly don’t agree with their government’s violence. I presume Jonathon Cook is a good Jew and I deeply respect his love of Palestine. I love Palestine.
This is the way forward, by debate and friendship, and condemning violence of any kind. Anything else is doomed to fail and makes things worse all the time.
@Giyane
I shouldn’t have raised it here, but just felt incensed how stuff is reported like a battle of equals on UK TV news, and Craig had tweeted on the subject.
You’re right, Hamas aren’t admirable, but Israel played the biggest role in bringing Hamas to power, by either refusing to negotiate with more dovish elected leaders, or carrying out assassinations, making the positions untenable. What does Mahmoud Abbas, someone who everyone agrees , is one of the most dovish Palestinian leaders ever, have to show for his efforts?
Having a group running Gaza like Hamas, a group that’s been designated a terrorist organisation in the west – due to Israeli lobbying, probably suits the v.hawkish Israeli leadership just fine. It allows them to dismiss the long-suffering Gazan population collectively, as ‘terror group supporters’, which obviously plays well for Israel in western capitals, and of course on Fox news.
Absolute BS, that suggests an established neocon has secret sympathy with the Palestinian cause. Not even Starmer forbids his MPs from expressing solidarity with Palestine.
So what happens if the appeal to the SC is successful?
The Lord Advocate recently admitted to malicious prosecution – surely a criminal act? – and it had no personal consequences for him whatsoever…
My guess: zero on all counts.
they’ll probably treat it like the U.S. government does its own war crimes; pretend it never happened.
You can tell that Dorian woman that this pleb has just seen the identity of Woman H outed on twitter, for the whole world to look at. I have followed your blog/twiitter posts and didn’t have the foggiest idea who the protected complainant was. But now we have progressed from alleged jigsaw identification to a massive billboard with the complainer’s name picked out in neon and that is OK.
This campaign against you stinks, but somehow I’m not surprised at the brutal violence of the Scottish elite, look what happened to Rizzio and Darnley.
Danke craig für deine wichtige arbeit, spende ist raus
—
[ Thank you Craig for your important work, the donation is sent. ]
Endlich!!!
Ich dachte ich bin der Einzige in Deutschland der Craig Murray nicht nur unterstutzt, aber wahrnehmt.
Bleib gesund Andi!
Grüß aus Ostfriesland.
Billy
—
[ At last!!!
I thought I am the only one in Germany who not only supports Craig Murray, but also perceives.
Stay healthy Andi!
Greetings from East Frisia.
Billy ]
Billy, du bist nicht der einzigste. Einige hier haben Jahre lang Erfahrung mit Craig und seinem intetessanten Leben.
Heissen Dank fuer deine Unterstuetzung, SAFFA, einfach Klasse.
—
[ Billy, you’re not the only one. Some of them have years of experience with Craig and his interesting life.
Many thanks for your support, SAFFA, just great. ]
Moin aus Leer an der Ems..
Schön das du dich gemeldet hast, es tut mir nur Leid das ich es jetzt erst gesehen habe!
Tja. Craigs Berichte, vorallem über Julian Assange, sind so wichtig, aber ich merke das ich hier oben weder im Freundes, noch Bekannten Kreis das Thema überhaupt ansprechen kann. Traurig, aber wahr.
Also, bleib gesund, und wir hören vielleicht noch von einander!
Take care,
Billy
Du bist nicht allein, es gibt einige in Deutschland.
Ich fand CM über einen Blog mit großer Reichweite: http://blog.fefe.de/?ts=9e65195c
Wenn Fefe etwas in seinem Blog erwähnt hat das Auswirkungen.
Es sind schon Webseiten zusammen gebrochen weil Fefe auf sie verlinkt hat.
Mario aus Ostdeutschland
You are not alone, there are some in Germany to.
I found CM by reading this wide range Blog: http://blog.fefe.de/?ts=9e65195c
It has some impact when Fefe writes about something.
Some Websides goes down by the Rush just because Fefe set a Link to it.
Mario from Eastgermany
Ich lerne Deutsch. Danke fuer die gute Uebung! (Entweder soll ich schreibe “Uebunge”?)
I’m learning German. Thanks for the good practice! (Question about the right ending in German)
Correction: “Oder” instead of “Entweder”
“Übung” is correct
In case you dont have umlauts on your keyboard: https://resources.german.lsa.umich.edu/schreiben/umlaute-ascii-html/
People, let’s draw more attention to fundraising!
I was able to donate a little bit. These funds were not free, but intended to renew my driver’s license. But I thought I could walk for awhile, because Mr. Murray sacrifices much more – his freedom.
I urge you all to reconsider your financial priorities. Otherwise, it may be that we will all be walking, and maybe even marching, mutely, in some brave new world.
Something needs to be done about it, today.
Well done Tatyana…that’s a very good idea. .
I have not been through all the comments but wonder if the following logic is applicable.
Either:
1) The jigsaw identification is based exclusively on CM’s posts in which case should not the prosecution have to prove their case by assembling the jigsaw
2) The jigsaw identification relies upon CM’s posts plus other sources in which case should not the prosecution be required to identify them and bring similar charges against the other(s)
To assign guilt without either 1 or 2 (or in the case of 2 at least identifying the information) is to do so without proof
Ah, I recognise a fellow believer in logic! Trouble is, judges (like politicians) believe much more firmly in the power of hot air and emotion.
Stuart Campbell, of Wings Over Scotland calling it a day, an end of an era.
I was very late to the Party , only discovering all the Political blogs via this site in January . I regularly read and occasionally comment on Iain Lawson , GD etc Such sad news re Wings over Scotland , I wish those Wings had been over Wales too. We have no one that champions Independence in Wales like Rev . Stu ..Many may not like his style .. but he sure doesn’t lack in substance .. The last dark months of lockdown have been brightened by his blogs .. I rarely read any papers or MSM online ..
I have worked in Scotland for the last 5 years and the AS case was strikingly similar to that of the late Carl Sargeant .
When we look back, Campbell’s piece, “All the jolly boys and girls” will be regarded as the most significant piece of investigative journalism of this age.
https://wingsoverscotland.com/all-the-jolly-boys-and-girls/
The nucleus is all there. There’s plenty more to uncover if you follow the threads.
I’m pretty much as despondent as Campbell is, but I (must) live in Sturgeon’s Stasi state so I don’t have the option of voluntary retirement (that’s not a dig at Campbell).
Let’s hope so, Mr O’Blivion. It’s a shame that the Right Rev has stopped blogging, but it’s probably for the best.
Anyway, if you’ll excuse the sycophancy, I should say that I always look forward to seeing your distinctive avatar in these depressing times – and I’d imagine that I’m not the only one – especially as you seem to have hit a rich vein lately: ‘Cumberchuff Young Team’ – that’s a Ten from Len.
Right it’s Friday night: Buckfast spitzers and Doja Cat a-go-go. I wonder how many air funk guitars will be on display when the danceries re-open and the resident DJs drop ‘Say So’ onto their digital platters. The correct answer is, of course, nowhere near enough.
Further to my reply to Jennifer Allan’s astute comment @18:24 on May 11, and finding myself with a bit of time on my hands, I’ve been subjecting the comments from the petty bourgeoisie on the aforementioned Daily Hate article to rigorous statistical analysis – well more rigorous than that used by the WHO to deny ivermectin to millions, with deeply tragic consequences.*
Here are the results:
Pro-Craig / Anti-judiciary comments – 56% of total – with average approval rating of ca. plus 300
Anti-Craig / Pro-judiciary comments – 31% of total – with average approval rating of ca. minus 100
Uncategorised comments – 13% of total (can’t be arsed working out their approval rating)
Note: I’ve included all comments alluding to money in the anti-Craig category, but the ‘punching above’ comment in the pro-Craig category. Our generous host always punches up.
As well as being shocked to the core by the sentence, I was also staggered to see the Hate journos didn’t enlighten us as to how much our generous host’s house is worth on the open market. Are they feeling all right? I hope they’re not coming down with that Indian variant.
* https://c19legacy.com/
I was going to leave a comment at the Hate pointing people in the direction of this blog, but you had to register to post one and I didn’t want them pebble-dashing my inbox with sidebar/boob-of-shame spam. Sorry.
Don’t worry, if I had registered and posted, I would have made sure to include the appropriate (Scottish) Government health warning: Reading Craig Murray’s Blog – and its attendant comment threads – can turn you from a boomer into a zoomer.
Should be pointed out comments on the Daily Mail article were effectively stopped after only 32 were published (all modified). My comment, submitted later, was never published along with an unknown number of others. There were a larger number of shares (132) which is good news, since the DM was on Craig’s own admission the fairest write up about his Court case and sentencing. The DM even contacted Craig for his response to Lady Dorrian’s comments whilst sentencing. Craig’s response to this more or less echoed my comment, but in addition I stated I thought the Judges’ harsh sentencing was inhumane.
Thanks very much for your reply Jennifer, and for the information about the Hate comments. I’d imagine that heavy moderation may be the reason for the unexpected dearth of sexist etc. ones.
Sorry that your comment wasn’t published. If it’s of any interest, my comment would have gone something like this:
For those of you enquiring as to Mr Murray’s financial status: he has been known to make sums in excess of £70k for 10 – 15 minutes’ work; unfortunately, most of it seems to go on legal fees.
For those of you enquiring as to what his good lady will be doing in the unfortunate event that leave to appeal is not granted: looking after their new baby and their older child, I would imagine – and perhaps baking him the odd hack-saw pie.
If anyone wants to help him out, please visit his blog. (Scots) Govt health warning: etc.
Lapsed Agnostic?? I wasn’t looking for a reply from you, just adding some info in addition to your data analysis; (thanks for that). Maybe it’s a good job the DM did not receive your above comment. For the record, those of us who donated to Craig’s appeal for legal funding, were well aware the money was destined to be spent on court and lawyers’ fees.
In Scotland it is virtually impossible for ordinary citizens to obtain justice for damage caused by Goverment and public services cock ups, unless you are a billionaire. (These days millionaire doesn’t cut it).
I wish Craig well with his appeal, although I worry about his physical and emotional health. Nicola Sturgeon’s Government thinks nothing of spending £zillions of public money defending lost causes like the failed Named Persons legislation. A similar ‘fight’ awaits us over the contentious clauses in the proposed ‘Hate Speech’ bill.
Thanks for your second reply Jennifer. I always try to reply to anyone who replies to one of my offerings, even if they accuse me of being a member of the ‘new gentry’ as Tony Laverick did in the comments on the blogpost of May 8.
My would-be comment at the Hate was aimed at having a square go at the commenters there who were insinuating that our generous host’s good lady is only with him for his money – and worse. I’m aware that most people who donate don’t think it’s all going on Lagavulin.
I’d imagine that you’d have half a chance of getting some measure of justice if you only had a net worth of £900 mill.
My current moniker is taken from an article I read in the Groan – of all places – over two decades ago, in which the intrepid foreign correspondent attempted to explain his religious affiliation to some Bible Belters.
Have a nice weekend.
Failed Agnostic -Yes your comment persona is plainly a paradox. You do not have to be conventionally ‘religious’ in order to accept some aspects of life defy logic. Personally, I believe in Karma and that truth always prevails in the end.
It is very unusual for the Daily Mail to bother with moderating their troll infested comment threads, which normally attract thousands of comments. The DM has an army of legal advisors and they are very careful about articles and comments which might bring the wrath of the establishment to their door. Sturgeon makes no secret of her loathing of the DM, but whatever you think of this press outlet, they do usually attempt to present both sides of their stories, rather than regurgitate ‘press releases’, many of which are nothing more than propaganda or advertisements.
Yes I too found those comments about Craig’s lovely wife thoroughly offensive. Best to ignore such drivel.
You have a nice weekend too.
Thank you for your nice reply Jennifer. I promise this will be my last contribution to this thread. Perhaps we’ll meet again on other threads. I chose my current moniker because I thought it was fairly amusing – or at least it amused me. I wouldn’t read too much into it. This is a bit beyond my ken, but I believe that the mathematician Kurt Godel attempted to reduce everything to logic. Let’s just say it didn’t do him much good.
I try to analyse comments on articles in the national press about our generous host, the Skripal saga in an attempt to gauge the public mood, but if they’re being heavily moderated, it makes that more complicated. I wonder why the mods at the Hate decided to limit the number of comments to around 30. Maybe it’s because they were inundated with ‘I-am-Spartacus’ comments naming all of the Alphabetti Spaghetti women?
To be honest – as well as preaching the gospel about vitamin D – even though we’re dealing with serious subjects, I’m mainly here for the bantz, as DunGroanin would put it. If I can make at least one trained-killer worker drone at Denison Barracks a year spit out a mouthful of Ginsters steak bake onto their keyboard – and maybe raise a few smiles from the regular readers – I’ll be more than happy. (The 77th doesn’t appear to have a motto at the moment; does anyone with a classical education know what the Latin for ‘Two Little Crutches’ is?)
All the best.
(P.S. Thanks to the mods for indentation on one of my above comments; I don’t do formatting. Sorry that you had to remove one or two of my ‘jokes’ at the expense of our hard-working security services personnel and state-sponsored infotainment providers. Too much sun in the beer garden. I’ll try to be more careful in future.)
Report that a barrister who broke an embargo on a Supreme Court order has been fined £5,000. He said he had wanted the truth to come out and had been prepared to go to jail.
Tim Crosland a barrister fined £5,000 for contempt for breaking an embargo on a Supreme Court decision
I will donate. I found this website had some interesting posts about the Skripal/ novichok issue and what Craig wrote seemed to be honest and perceptive. I can’t claim to know all the facts/law but this has the smell of a politicised decision. I think and hope that the Supreme Court will be objective here and if either it refuses to grant leave to appeal, or Craig loses there, he will at least have had a fair hearing.
Just so saddened that this is Scotland today. So sorry that this injustice is happening. ?
What a cuntry i live in (not a typo).
the truth gets you gaol.
lies gets you the highest office.
WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCKEN FUCK.
CUNTS the lot of them
You might think so, I couldn’t possibly comment
Donation made. Stunned by this travesty of a sentence. All the best from downunder, Mr Murray.
OK – Craig’s articles are all still available on `Way back machine’. I haven’t checked, but I clicked on the link provided by the poster Natasha and I’m prepared to believe that they’re all there.
So – any constructive suggestions as to how your average Joe (such as myself) can `stand up and be counted’ – i.e. if Craig Murray really has done something worthy of 8 months in prison, then she should send us all to chokey for 8 months, because we’re right behind him on this matter?
The only reason I didn’t write similar stuff is (a) because I don’t have the writing ability, (b) I don’t have the contacts to get the information and (c) my job doesn’t give me the time.
But if there is a prison sentence, then I’d like the opportunity to express full solidarity with Craig Murray on this matter – but I can’t see how to go about this.
I think that sending money to pay lawyers to put together an appeal is a total waste of money – there must surely be other ways to go about this.
James Riddle
Your idea would probably increase Craig’s sentence from half to the full 8 months, or more.
The Supreme Court is unlikely to overturn what a Scottish judge has decided, especially when Scottish Judges are well able to disagree with the Supreme court on other matters, such as Independence.
The Lady Dorrian and the Lord Advocate have made their beds and they must lie in them. The causes they espouse, Women’s exceptionalism and Unionism will be re-written in the legislation of an Independent Scotland very soon. Male exceptionalism was disgusting and female exceptionalism is just as bad. Trans exceptionalism even worse.
Nobody has a right to be deemed in the right without scrutiny if justice means anything. It’s just outrageous that these women can claim to have been assaulted without providing any evidence or taking responsibility for their accusations.
We all know where exceptionalism comes from.
It is the main justification for Scottish Independence, not something to be built into the fabric of Scottish Independence.
Giyane, I’m not sure what you mean by “Scottish Judges are well able to disagree with the Supreme court on other matters, such as Independence.” The Supreme Court is the UK’s highest court and can override a decision of the Scottish court here, although (generally speaking) appellate courts should not overturn findings of fact by trial judges.
As regards “The Supreme Court is unlikely to overturn what a Scottish judge has decided” – how do you know this, unless you’re a specialist in the relevant area of law?
FAOD I would reiterate that “sending money to pay lawyers to put together an appeal is a total waste of money” is not correct. Craig has to follow legal process here, including not attempting to argue legal points himself given that (as I understand it) he has no legal qualifications. If his case is legally sound (and I don’t know if it is) then the hope and expectation must be that he will get the right result from the Supreme Court. It is not regarded as a court which can be “got at” or “nobbled” somehow, even by Westminster politicians, let alone Scottish ones, and you would certainly expect that he will get a fair hearing.
JM1979
There are some fields of work in which the rules are crystal clear and the penalties for breaching them as well.
I am an electrician , and if you put all the judges right on Monday, by Friday afternoon the bodgers would have changed everything back to wrong again.
The law is one if those esoteric fields of work in which the collective ego of the profession can reverse common sense if it sees a political advantage in doing so.
The Brexit treaty was one example and the EU could do nothing but fume at Albion’s perfidy.
I have no respect for lawyers or the legal.profession.imho they make anything that is bad worse, and charge extoryionstely for the privelege.
Leave the fxxxers to do their stupid little games. Say yes to the licence panel’s intrusive and impertinent interrogations and write off 4 months of wasted time to experience.
Pretty soon they will find another incident where they need to argue the opposite of what they argued in your case and they will be ridiculed for that. But they are prostitutes to fortune and a bit of clap is priced into their charges as wear and tear.
If I had wanted to be a lawyer I would have decided to be such an arsxxxle at 10 years old, but I decided to do something more honest instead. Like eating chicken and rice on Eid day. Eid Mubarak to all honest souls who hate man/woman-made Law.
Falsely accusing a man of sexual impropriety, or of contempt of truth, is one of the most despised crimes .
That senior Lawyers in the Scottish judiciary have openly and shamelessly stitched up Alex Salmond and Craig Murray is appalling, but their disgusting lack of truthfulness is nothing compared with their being toasted in hell in the hereafter.
“Leave the fxxxers to do their stupid little games. Say yes to the licence panel’s intrusive and impertinent interrogations and write off 4 months of wasted time to experience.”
Whatever you think about the court system, the judges do have the very real power (enforced ultimately by the police) to incarcerate Craig. Assuming this is something he would prefer to avoid (and he does have health issues) it really would be best to play by their rules. I don’t think it is such a bad thing to have a set of laws which are (supposedly) objectively enforced.
Of course, in practice, no judge is 100% objective. They all have their own personal biases. However, it would be very shocking if any of the Supreme Court, the European courts or for that matter 99% of Scottish courts had their independence externally compromised in some way. I say 99% of Scottish courts as I don’t know exactly what is going on with this Lady Dorrian and her surprising ability to read Craig’s mind. Your posts suggest you think some or all of these courts are somehow “owned”, which I think is a little strong. There are numerous examples of the UK courts standing up to/ censuring UK politicians.
I am qualified as a lawyer, although a while ago and I don’t know anything about this concept of “jigsaw identification.” You would expect and hope that the Supreme Court would consider this on the law. Sometimes the law can produce strange/ extreme results but generally the courts try to interpret it in a common sense/ reasonable way.
JM1979
Thanks for your reply. It seems that jigsaw identification refers to libel cases where a famous person claims to have been identified, rather than a rape case which is about “” victims “”..
I think that is significant , because in a libel case the accused perpetrator is complaining about exposure, not the victim.
By using the term ‘ jigsaw identification ‘ the prosecution are inferring that the alphabet women had had consensual sexual relations with Salmond which they did not wish to be made public.
Their complaint was about the publicity, but the prosecution twisted their complaint into a charge of rape.
That is similar to what happened with Julian Assange where the women’s concerns about contracting HIV were converted by the prosecution into charges of rape.
Why on earth would the Supreme Court question the integrity of the prosecution, when they have a headless chicken Senior Judge Lady Dorrian squawking about rape and anonymity. Are they supposed to question the integrity of their own crown prosecutors?
Unfortunately this case stinks of blag and innuendo. While the Supreme Court judges may be highly qualified in Law, I very much doubt they are as qualified in blag as they bastards in the SNP that commissioned this prosecution and took it to the police. .
( Blag => deception or guile )
I don’t get the appeal to the Supreme Court bit in any case; wouldn’t you be appealing to the Appeal Court in Edinburgh?
I don’t know about the Scottish court system (I’m from south of the border…)
Another point I’m not sure about here is the extent to which the Supreme Court could/ would interfere with some of the findings of Lady Dorrian. In particular, she has found that Craig acted “deliberately and lethally.” Does anyone know if that is now treated as a finding of fact which an appellate court cannot overturn?
Why rank exceptionalism? Surely all forms of exceptionalism are equally to be avoided? Or otherwise ranking one type of exceptionalism above or below another type of exceptionalism, is in itself exceptionalism?
I’ve repeated my earlier comment here. The Mail Online no longer carries the article (as is usual after two days) and the link to it is now on the second page of Googled ‘Craig Murray’ items, although all the ‘unfriendly’ articles in the Scotsman, Herald, Guardian etc are still up there at the top. Craig supporters can help by continuing to share the DM link as widely as possible. These articles do remain on the internet but it is obvious some influence has been used to prevent this valuable Craig friendly article from being easily accessed by supporters:-
“Craig was interviewed by the Daily Mail, which published Lady Dorrian’s comments when sentencing:-
Quote:
“Sentencing the former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, judge Lady Dorrian said Murray knew there were court orders giving the women anonymity and he was ‘relishing’ the potential disclosure of their identities.”
Craig’s response to this (Quote):-
‘I genuinely did not intend to identify anyone I really didn’t, and I don’t think I did identify anyone. I still believe that,’ Murray said.
‘There was no evidence led at all by anyone to justify the judge’s remarks about doing it ‘deliberately and lethally’ as she said. ‘I just don’t know where that came from, it wasn’t alleged by the prosecution, it wasn’t in the evidence. I don’t know how she could say such a thing. I found it all a bit strange. Slightly bemused but ready to continue with the appeal.’
Craig also commended the DM’s fair reporting on Twitter.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9565659/Britains-former-ambassador-Uzbekistan-Craig-Murray-sentenced-eight-months-jail.html
WOW! The DM article is back up there with the others on the first ‘Google’ page. Keep an eye on it folks.
How to explain this astonishing judgement and sentence?
Possibly Lady Dorrian is feeling the heat for not getting the desired result in the Alex Salmond case.
Not so much arrogance and entitlement, not even stupidity but more a panicky overreaction?
Joe+Mellon
Maybe Craig’s report of the Defence case in Salmond’s trial prevented her from delivering her preferred verdict for fear of having it reversed so she was told to bide her time and get Craig instead.
But I think power has gone to the heads of the two USUKIS assets Humza Yousaf and Wolffe in sheep’s clothing because their USUKIS protectors have told them they own the Supreme Court and ECJ and ECHR which may be true.
They clearly own the British ballot box through Idox.and they own much of Britain’s Defence infrastructure through profiteering and privatisation.by the foaming Tories and Red Tories. In their minds all they have to do is get the Tory and Red Tory MSM to windowdress these travesties of Justice as models of Justice. How gracious of Dame Dorrian to postpone Craig’s sentence long enough for him to waste another £200,000 appealing to a supreme court they already own.
In the 18 years I have been posting on CM blog I have always said that our normal imaginations are unable to conceive of the extent of the evil of these criminals.
They would make Hitler and Stalin look like saints, if you counted the millions of dead, displaced and terrorised people their proxy terrorists have savaged in the Middle East and beyond. Al Shabab, Al Qaida and Daesh, plus their tin-pot dictators Assad, Mubarak, Saddam , Gaddafi and Netanya Hoo.
Power is a drug few people can handle without developing paranoia and going mad , like Thatcher and Blair.
This sentence together with 6 months the other man received, all to keep the public’s opinion that WAS sexual assaults case, that of Mr. Salmond.
Expect more action. Every time Mr. Salmond and his party succeed, each time they’ll remind you it was something criminal about Mr. Salmond and females.
Lieber spenden als saufen am 13.5. . Ich denke so ist das Geld besser investiert.
Ich wünsche dir am “Vatertag” alles Gute.
I like to donate the Money to Craig Murray to defend his freedom, instead of investing it to get drunk at 13.5. .
I wish you the best at the “the day for the father” .
For the past six hours I have tried on and off to send a donation to Craig via bank transfer from my Members Equity savings account. Each time I get the message, ‘Unable to process request because the system is unavailable.’.
Just checked again, transfered money to a family member, the transaction went through immediately. Then tried again to transfer to Craig and the service was again ‘unavailable.’
Anyone else having problems with bank transfer to Craig?
Is that UK to UK, or international to UK? My UK to UK transfers seem to work well (though we can only hope everything sent is received!).
Could you try PayPal instead?
Australia to UK. It’s worked before for international transfers.
I don’t like Paypal but will use a friend’s Paypal if that’s the only way I can do it. It was disconcerting to see that credit card payments via Craig’s ‘donate’ button don’t work without agreeing to set up a Paypal account which I won’t do. That’s why I tried bank transfer.
Political Prisoner, Scottish variant.
O tempora….
Really bad day for justice; only positive is the perjury trials that must follow Craig’s exposures. WHAT? No perjury trials?
Donation sent and all best wishes to you Craig for the appeal.
I am a retired solicitor and have been following this case and the Alex Salmond case carefully. The court’s interpretation of “jigsaw” identification is unrealistic and disproportionate, particularly when there is strong evidence that mainstream media journalists did more on that front than you did. I certainly was not able to identify any of the Complainants from the articles on your blog. Finding someone guilty of contempt of court and sending them to prison for a theoretical potential identification when the prosecution has failed to adduce evidence of any actual identification sets a bar for the future which is completely unrealistic (even for mainstream media journalists who have access to a legal department). No attempt made apparently by the judge to balance the competing requirements (1) to provide the public with accurate reporting of court cases against (2) need to protect anonymity of complainants. Without the context provided by your reports, the public would not have had a full understanding of the nature of the case against Alex Salmond nor would they have understood the particular circumstances in which the complaints arose ( arguably it would also have been difficult for the public to understand how Alex Salmond was found not guilty given the biased reporting in the mainstream media!).
As regards Nicola Sturgeon and her cohort, their conduct and misuse of the Crown Office (over a wide range of cases) undermines the rule of law, damages the cause of Scottish independence and is an embarrassment to Scottish lawyers and the Scottish legal system (once reasonable people lose faith in the criminal law prosecuting system, what’s really left to hold on to?). Nicola Sturgeon’s own comments after the trial of Alex Salmond suggesting that he was guilty of some unspecified misbehaviour towards women and implying that somehow he was fortunate to escape conviction are shameful and disgraceful, particularly from someone who apparently qualified as a solicitor but has obviously forgotten everything she learned regarding the presumption of innocence and the meaning of a “not guilty“ decision.
Donation made. Best wishes. Keep upright.
Donation made.
I attempted to make a donation but it was rejected with the statement that such payments were not supported in this country.
I live in Malaysia.
I fail to understand such rejection especially as I regularly purchase books and pipe tobacco from overseas successfully.