Is Alex Salmond sex pest? - Page 12 - Politics - Tartan Army Message Board Jump to content

Is Alex Salmond sex pest?


andreimack

Recommended Posts

13 minutes ago, wee-toon-red said:

As suggested elsewhere, if Scotland gaining independence is dependent on whether Salmond is a sex offender or not, and whether Sturgeon stitched him up or not, then we’re not ready to be independent anyway.

Amen to that

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What I find as far too coincidental is the timing of this. If you have a look at the rumour mill and cryptic messages from Ian Blackford and Nicola Sturgeon an attempt to go for a second indyref seemed imminent. May had said it was not happening but still the rumours remained and then hey presto..... this. I cannot see any push for indyref2 happening with this lingering. The only way it may be re-opened is if subsequent opinion polls are still strong for the SNP in election polls and the independence front but that would seem unlikely. 

Personally, I do not see the issue at all affecting my stance but no doubt there are others who will feel otherwise. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 minutes ago, ParisInAKilt said:

Not sure if it’s a unionist establishment stitch up. Why not go after him before the referendum?

People saying he’s definitely guilty or innocent based on their political views are as loopy as each other. 

I am open to his innocence or guilt. But do you not find it odd that these allegations have been floating around for many, many months now and all of a sudden at a time when the Brexit talks have stalled and talks of another indyref grow to a crescendo the allegations are made into charges and far greater than what we originally thought them to be. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 minutes ago, Caledonian Craig said:

I am open to his innocence or guilt. But do you not find it odd that these allegations have been floating around for many, many months now and all of a sudden at a time when the Brexit talks have stalled and talks of another indyref grow to a crescendo the allegations are made into charges and far greater than what we originally thought them to be. 

Not particularly as that's how these cases tend to develop.  The original allegation relate to incidents involving two female civil servants in 2017.   The array of charges however suggests either multiple incidents against the same individuals or others have come forward with fresh allegations.  There was some talk about investigating an alleged incident at Edinburgh Airport that was leaked to the press.   It could well be that other allegations have been made that haven't made it into the public domain so far.  The police rely on the publicity generated to encourage people to come forward.

In general terms that is how cases like those against the likes of Stuart Hall & Rolf Harris - and Saville if he hadn't been protected - have succeeded, that each incident taken individually can't stand up as its - for obvious reasons - it tends to be one persons word against another.  However, if you have multiple people - importantly people with no connection to each other - describing similar sorts of incidents it highlights a pattern of behaviour.    Where cases fail, it's generally because the prosecution have failed to demonstrate that pattern of behaviour. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, Auld_Reekie said:

That charge sheet.... 😦

Innocent until proven guilty and all that, but... it's no looking great for Salmond. Can't see Procurator Fiscal going to court with that charge sheet without being pretty confident of the evidence and their case. Attempted rape?! Fucking hell. Hard not to think he's done for - for the conspiracy theorists amongst us, that jury will be picked straight from a Question Time audience.

 

 

10 hours ago, Auld_Reekie said:

😄 You what?

I see nothing much has changed on here. People like me are probably keeping an open mind and are willing to let a court of justice determine his guilt. I certainly won't be backing Salmond until his innocence is clear nor will I be donating to a crowdfund or some other crass licking of Alex's bumhole just because of my political biases.

Oh go fuck yourself. Read what you write. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

And if you had any doubts about the motivation to stack the same allegations up into multiple charges to make the person look guilty before you even get to trial then that Daily Record front page should remove them.

Also look at the bottom..."The face of independence". 

And folk don't think this is going to have an impact. I would not be so sure about that.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 minutes ago, thplinth said:

And if you had any doubts about the motivation to stack the same allegations up into multiple charges to make the person look guilty before you even get to trial then that Daily Record front page should remove them.

Also look at the bottom..."The face of independence". 

And folk don't think this is going to have an impact. I would not be so sure about that.

 

Personally, it doesn't have an impact on me but yes I can see it having an impact on those easily swayed/convinced by newspaper headlines. I mean if there were to be an indyref2 he is not 'The Face of Independence' as they claim. Independence was never all about one person. People that want independence come from every spectrum of our society from dustmen to sportsmen from teachers to businessmen. This newspaper is trying to deny Scotland a fair say in our future ....why? Because an ex-politician once involved with the SNP has been charged (not found guilty yet) with sex offences.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think folk are truly underestimating the stakes here. With BREXIT there was a very real risk that Scotland might have voted for Independence at some point in the near future (within 5 years say). Rightly or wrongly this will really tarnish it in many people's minds. Most of the arguments for NO have been destroyed by the events that followed NO. Next time around they would have really struggled and so this is VERY fortuitous for them. 

'Independence - if you had voted for that you would have had a rapist as the first ever independent FM blah blah.' It will get thrown in peoples faces endlessly. All the arguments made by Salmond over the years will become poisoned in people minds. The stakes here are massive IMHO.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 minutes ago, thplinth said:

I think folk are truly underestimating the stakes here. With BREXIT there was a very real risk that Scotland might have voted for Independence at some point in the near future (within 5 years say). Rightly or wrongly this will really tarnish it in many people's minds. Most of the arguments for NO have been destroyed by the events that followed NO. Next time around they would have really struggled and so this is VERY fortuitous for them. 

'Independence - if you had voted for that you would have had a rapist as the first ever independent FM blah blah.' It will get thrown in peoples faces endlessly. All the arguments made by Salmond over the years will become poisoned in people minds. The stakes here are massive IMHO.

Yes I definitely understand what you are saying but if people want independence enough they won't be swayed or denied their right to vote on self-governance. If I were the SNP right now I'd be formulating a retort to put people's fears/doubts to bed.

They should point out they were fully transparent about the case and never tried to cover up the allegations or sweep them under the carpet or prevent the police doing their duty. I'd also drop hints at how Westminster has done exactly the opposite in recent times. Vote independence vote transparency. Vote no and vote for the continued cloak and daggers and look after our own of Westminster.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Most of the women i have spoken to at work are of the same mindset - set up - none are aware of social media 

And that's mostly down to the media bias of the last 6 years 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, thplinth said:

 

Oh go fuck yourself. Read what you write. 

Offfftttt. You're an angry man thplinth.

I've read what I wrote and that was a comment relating to the probabilities of whether Salmond will actually be able to avoid some sort of conviction here based on the weight and scale of charges he's facing. I don't think such an observation is any kind of indication of my opinion on his guilt or otherwise. And my opinion is that I don't have a clue whether he's innocent or guilty on any of the charges because I know fuck all about them so I'm leaving to the court of law to tell me.

Go have a lie down thplinth. It's Friday. Cheer up.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, Auld_Reekie said:

Offfftttt. You're an angry man thplinth.

I've read what I wrote and that was a comment relating to the probabilities of whether Salmond will actually be able to avoid some sort of conviction here based on the weight and scale of charges he's facing. I don't think such an observation is any kind of indication of my opinion on his guilt or otherwise. And my opinion is that I don't have a clue whether he's innocent or guilty on any of the charges because I know fuck all about them so I'm leaving to the court of law to tell me.

Go have a lie down thplinth. It's Friday. Cheer up.

That was a response to you characterizing people who crowd funded the judicial review action at the court of session as arse lickers. If that had not been done none of the details about that rigged process would be known and we would have gone from that to the police charges without having a clue about any of it. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 hours ago, thplinth said:

Jesus, did people see that Craig Murray article from a couple of days ago...

Still think I am leaping? Sturgeon's role in all of this is shocking, really shocking. This goes way beyond an own goal... This has put so much in real jeopardy now. Crazy.

Why Leslie Evans Must Resign 438

Scotland’s retention of its own legal system, based on an entirely different legal inheritance to the Anglo-Saxon one, is an important part of its national heritage. Senior judiciary and lawyers held a unique social status in national life for many centuries, as joint custodians with the Church of the residual national autonomy. The lawyers of Edinburgh are still a formidable, and broadly conservative, caste. That caste is collectively astonished by the revelations in the Alex Salmond case, and especially by the Scottish Government’s brazen reaction to the judgement of Lord Pentland and the inexplicable failure of Leslie Evans to resign. Secrets that are sealed and kept from the public are shared in whispers amongst the legal brotherhood. In the corridors of the Court of Session, in the robing rooms, in the Signet Library, in the Bow Bar, in the fine restaurants concealed behind medieval facades in the Old Town, in the New Club, the facts whirl round and round, in an atmosphere approaching indignation.

I think now you should share in some of those facts.

The Scottish Government’s version of events was that in December 2017 a new civil service code was adopted which allowed complaints to be made against former ministers. That new code was published to staff on the Scottish Government intranet, which resulted in two complaints against Alex Salmond being received in January of 2018.

Neither I, nor the collective consciousness of legal Edinburgh, can recall any example in history of a government being caught in a more systematic and egregious lie by a judge, but yet continuing to insist it is in the right and will continue on the same course. Every point of the above official government story was proven not just to be wrong, but to be a lie, because Lord Pentland called a Commission on Diligence.

This is a little known and little used process in Scots Law where one party challenges whether the other party has really produced all the important evidence in disclosure. A Commissioner is appointed who, in closed session, hears evidence on oath as to what documents are available and their meaning.

The Scottish Government had opposed before Lord Pentland the setting up of the Commission on Diligence, on the grounds that there was no more relevant documentation – which turned out in itself to be a massive lie.

Over the Festive period, the Commission in the Salmond case obtained quite astonishing evidence that proved the Scottish Government was lying through its teeth and attempting to hide a great many key documents. The oral evidence under oath, particularly from Leslie Evans given on 23 December 2018, was even more jaw-dropping. It is because of what was revealed behind closed doors in the Commission on Evidence that legal Edinburgh cannot believe Leslie Evans has not resigned.

The truth is that Judith Mackinnon, the “Investigating Officer” in this case, was closely involved in the new and unprecedented procedure for complaints against “former ministers” from at the latest 7 November and had multiple direct contacts with the complainants against Salmond at the very latest from early December 2017 – just three months after Mackinnon took up her job as “Head of People Advice”. On or shortly after 7 November 2017, Permanent Secretary Leslie Evans was briefed about the complaint, which fact was minuted, in a manner that very definitely made Evans acutely aware of Mackinnon’s involvement. Evans claimed on 23 December 2018 under oath to have not noticed this, or to have forgotten it.

Evans being informed of the potential complaint against Salmond on or shortly after 7 November, coincided very closely with the initiation within the Civil Service in Scotland of the drafting of a new Civil Service Code enabling complaints against former ministers. This Civil Service activity included seeking the views of the Cabinet Office in London on creating a code enabling complaints against ex-ministers. The Cabinet Office in London did not support the idea. Nevertheless on 22 November 2017 the First Minister agreed the change in principle, as in line with the aims of the MeToo movement.

Judith Mackinnon’s preparation of the complainants against Salmond then entered a higher gear. She had numerous meetings and communications with both complainants in early December 2017. At the same time, she was continuing to be actively involved in the drafting of the new Code to enable the case she was working on. Astonishingly, the two complainants were themselves actually sent the draft Former Ministers Procedure for comment by Judith Mackinnon, before it was adopted! One of them, who had left the Civil Service, also appeared from the records to be potentially encouraged by another senior civil servant with the suggestion of the prospect of employment. Both were told by Mackinnon that she was likely to be the chosen “investigator”.

The Former Ministers Procedure in final form was not adopted and active until 20 December 2017, when it was signed off by Nicola Sturgeon, wweks after Mackinnon initiated action to proceed with complaints against Salmond. The new procedure was not advertised on the Intranet to staff until 8 February 2018, two months after Mackinnon’s first meeting with at least one of the complainants.

Contrary to the lies of the Scottish Government, zero complaints against Alex Salmond were received from staff following the publication to staff of the new former ministers procedure on the Intranet. The only two complaints had both been canvassed and encouraged a minimum of three months earlier.

Leslie Evans was aware of Judith Mackinnon’s role in the process at least from November 7 2017. Evans was repeatedly informed throughout December 2017 of the development of the complaints and of Mackinnon’s – and other civil servants’ -contacts with the complainants. The complaints against Salmond were being developed in parallel with the drafting of the Code which would retrospectively cover them, and being developed by the same people doing the drafting, and even the complainants were consulted on the draft Code. It was not until January 2018 that Mackinnon was appointed as “Investigating Officer” despite the fact that the Civil Service Code stipulated that the Investigating Officer must have “no prior involvement with any aspect of the matter”. She had in fact had intensive contact with the complainers over two months and had been active in the development of the procedure for three months. There is no indication that Mackinnon was keeping that secret from her senior colleagues or the Permanent Secretary, Evans.

Nicola Sturgeon, reacting to her Government’s court defeat, disingenuously described to Holyrood Mackinnon’s contacts with the complainants as merely “welfare support and guidance”. Sturgeon knows for a fact that is not true. The documents the Scottish Government was forced by the Commission to disclose prove that Mackinnon’s involvement comprised, as described in open court:

the substance of the complaint, evidence to support the complaints, circumstances in which they arose, the manner in which they could go on to make formal complaints and a significant decree of assistance to the complainers bordering on encouragement to proceed with their complaints.

Still more of a lie is Leslie Evans’ astonishing and unrepentant statement after the humiliating capitulation of the Government case before Lord Pentland. It is a statement woven through with falsehood and deceit, but the most obviously untrue point of all is her refusal to acknowledge what the documents show, that she knew full well all this was happening at the time.

After reassessing all the materials available, I have concluded that an impression of partiality could have been created based on one specific point – contact between the Investigating Officer and the two complainants around the time of their complaints being made in January 2018.
The full picture only became evident in December 2018 as a result of the work being undertaken to produce relevant documents in advance of the hearing.

Evans’ blatant attempt to pretend she knew nothing, and thus throw Mackinnon under the bus alone, is morally disgusting. Still more so is her utterly false claim that, the case having fallen after she conceded it on the basis Mackinnon ought not to have been appointed Investigating Officer, all Alex Salmond’s other legal points fell. Evans’ statement reads:

All the other grounds of Mr Salmond’s challenge have been dismissed.

That is a total untruth. It was made perfectly plain in Lord Pentland’s Court that, the Scottish Government having conceded the case, there was no point in hearing all the other grounds. This was made specific in court, where the other points were described as “now academic”.

I hope I have managed to make plain to you that Mackinnon’s appointment as Investigating Officer was the least of the many dreadful things of which the Scottish Government was guilty in this case. They naturally conceded on the least embarrassing. In fact, the entire matter is an orchestrated stitch-up.

Finally, I am obliged to consider the role of the First Minister and her subsequent defence of Evans and Mackinnon. I do so with the heaviest of hearts, because I know that any criticism at all of Nicola Sturgeon is considered utterly inadmissible by many of my fellow campaigners for Scottish Independence. Believe me, if I did not feel a strong obligation to truth I would much prefer not to speak of it.

But consider this, with as open a mind as you can muster.

Sturgeon’s defence of Mackinnon, as doing no more in the instigation of the complaints than provide welfare counselling and advice, is completely untrue. Sturgeon knows very well that it is untrue.

Consider this as well. Had the Scottish Government not thrown in the towel, Nicola’s Chief of Staff Liz Lloyd would that day have been questioned under oath about documents that she would have had to produce to the Court. Lloyd may well also not be anxious to be questioned about the leak of salacious details of one of the allegations, to David Clegg of the Daily Record. Lloyd knows Clegg well.

It really is very difficult to look through all the facts – including some I have not given here as they have not been referred to in open court – and conclude that Nicola was unaware of the stitch-up. I have spoken to dozens of sources this last three weeks, including many elected SNP figures, a couple of civil servants, and others who know Nicola personally. This is my conclusion, based on their extensive observations.

It is no secret that feminism is Nicola’s passion. A gender-balanced Cabinet, all-female shortlists for SNP Holyrood candidates, gender balance on boards of public authorities, these and many more are results of Nicola’s feminist activism in government, much of it admirable. Leslie Evans is close to her and a key ally in driving forward that agenda.

Leslie Evans has built a career out of promoting PC identity politics within local authorities and the civil service. In this story of her dishonesty when an officer at Edinburgh City Council, that appears to be her motivation against the project she sought to penalise. Evans frequently states her feminist principles.

And my gender politics too – my feminism – and I am a feminist – dates back to learning about Elizabeth 1st’s speech at Tilbury (‘I know I have the body of a weak, feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king’)…
Most Permanent Secretaries are male and the product of private schooling and the Oxbridge system. You might have noticed I’m none of these things. In fact I am only the 30th female Perm Sec in whole history of the UKCS and the first female Perm Sec in Scotland has ever seen.

She was chosen, from a shortlist, to head the Civil Service in Scotland by Nicola. I am quite certain that the fact she was a woman with a history of promoting gender issues was a major factor in Nicola’s choice. Precisely the same factors also characterise Judith Mackinnon’s career in human resources, as I previously reported. Here is Leslie Evans on gender equality throughout Scottish government:

There’s another key difference between Scotland’s government and the UK’s – for Holyrood’s a world leader in gender diversity. Not only are the perm sec and the leaders of the three biggest parties women, but also half the cabinet, half the directors general, and 46% of the senior civil service.

As in all fields of diversity, Evans warns, this parity’s fragile: “It only takes one or two people to leave, and you’ve got a completely different balance again. You can never have the luxury of thinking you’ve done it.” And does achieving that balance change how government operates? She’s cautious. “I’d be foolish to say that this government feels very different from others, or that the cabinet operates in a markedly different way,” she replies. “I do think there are some broad themes that I can pick out. I think women tend to be a bit more collaborative; sometimes they’re a bit more thoughtful, and less likely to jump to conclusions. But I’m sure that people would challenge me on some of that thinking.”

This key ITV News article from 2015 was headlined “Sturgeon’s Women Power vs Cameron’s Man Power”

But Ms Sturgeon has also made her mark at the heart of government.
Women now occupy the three most important jobs in Scottish politics.
That’s in marked contrast to the big jobs in Downing Street, all held by men.
As it happens there are also significant educational differences too.
In Scotland the top three women were all state educated.
South of the Border they all went to public (in other words private) schools.
Here’s the roll call:
There’s Ms Sturgeon herself who went to Greenwood Academy in Ayrshire, and on to Glasgow University.
Her chief of staff and senior political adviser, Liz Lloyd, went to Gosforth High School in Newcastle, a state school, and Edinburgh University.
Leslie Evans, newly appointed as the Permanent Secretary to the Scottish government, the most senior civil servant in Scotland, went to High Storrs school in Sheffield and Liverpool University.

That article was briefed by Sturgeon’s office and Nicola sees Lloyd, Evans and Mackinnon as performing key roles in driving her gender equality policies in Scotland. That is why she leaps to defend them. That is her here and now, and has become more real to her than the time before she was First Minister, campaigning for Independence with Alex. She is emotionally attached to Lloyd, Evans and Mackinnon on that basis, to the extent that she is prepared to defend the indefensible.

Nicola sees the criticism of the attack on Alex, an attack made under her MeToo inspired Former Ministers Procedure, as a slur on the integrity of the gender policies which Nicola sees as cementing her place in history. It is also a direct attack on the female team which she hand-picked to implement those policies. It is not irrelevant to the MeToo context that Alex Salmond has been described frequently as, solely in a political sense, being a father figure to Nicola, and perhaps is thus easily associated in her mind with the abusive patriarchy as characterised by the feminist movement. Despite the obvious fishiness of both the allegations against Alex and the way they were dredged up, they fit Nicola’s most valued agenda. In pursuing that agenda, Nicola has simply lost all sight of the notion of fairness to Alex Salmond.

It should be noted that after Lord Pentland’s ruling, Nicola rightly apologised to the complainants for the mishandling. She remarkably did not apologise to Alex Salmond, who was actually the person Lord Pentland had ruled her Government had treated unfairly. That was not an accidental omission.

If Alex Salmond goes ahead to sue the Scottish Government for damages, which I certainly hope that he does, the Scottish Government cannot oblige him to settle and will find it very difficult to stop both the documents to which I refer, and the key evidence on oath, from coming out in open court. I am very confident that anybody who now scoffs or rails at me will look very stupid when that happens.

In conclusion, a senior judge does not describe the Government’s proceedings as “unlawful”, “unfair” and “tainted by apparent bias” without extreme care. Those words carry full weight. That Nicola Sturgeon has simply sought to ignore them is astonishing.

UPDATE at 20.06: This article led to a number of people contacting me to offer more information, or in some cases correction, on various points, plus two lawyers who contacted me with legal advice. I have therefore made a number of relatively minor changes to detail including some dates, but they in no way alter the thrust of the narrative or the argument. If further information comes in, there may be more changes. I will let you know.

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/01/why-leslie-evans-must-resign/

Interesting article but  he's sloppy  on terminology and context. It's 'Commission and Diligence', it might be little known outside legal circles but any self respecting Scots lawyer should be able to tell you what it is, and if it's little used that can only be because the threat of proceeding to commission and diligence ought to lead to all relevant documents being produced - the procedure involves a 'specification of documents' e.g. a description of the documents required, being lodged in court and the appropriate order being granted by a judge. Also 'disclosure' is an English law concept that doesn't easily translate to Scots law.

Anyway, this is all by the by...

https://www.bbmsolicitors.co.uk/Blog/recovery-of-documents-in-scottish-litigation.html

 

 

Edited by neilser
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I also cant help but think from all the things that came out from the attempted judicial review detailed by Murray above (and in previous articles) that the people named were 'out to get him'. I don't know why but it raises the possibility that the same thing could be happening in the police investigation. If the civil servants were motivated by something personal the police investigation might be fair. If something darker is at work then i would say the chances are that the police investigation will also be corrupted as was the initial proceeding by these very suspicious civil servants. What we have seen at the first stage has to make you wonder about what is happening now at the second stage.

It is boiling down to two possibilities only for me. Either he is guilty or this is a well organized and planned attempt at character assassination. I am really curious to see the strength of the evidence against him. 

Like it or not AS was in that job so long and took it to 2014... he is the face of independence to some extent. Blacken his name and that is undoubtedly a kick in the balls to YES in my view.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 6 months later...
  • 2 months later...
On 1/25/2019 at 11:33 AM, thplinth said:

I also cant help but think from all the things that came out from the attempted judicial review detailed by Murray above (and in previous articles) that the people named were 'out to get him'. I don't know why but it raises the possibility that the same thing could be happening in the police investigation. If the civil servants were motivated by something personal the police investigation might be fair. If something darker is at work then i would say the chances are that the police investigation will also be corrupted as was the initial proceeding by these very suspicious civil servants. What we have seen at the first stage has to make you wonder about what is happening now at the second stage.

It is boiling down to two possibilities only for me. Either he is guilty or this is a well organized and planned attempt at character assassination. I am really curious to see the strength of the evidence against him. 

Like it or not AS was in that job so long and took it to 2014... he is the face of independence to some extent. Blacken his name and that is undoubtedly a kick in the balls to YES in my view.

Thing is though if ppl feel he's being stitched up then there will be a rise in support for him and maybe independence as well. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 months later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...