Sturgeon is cleared
Report finds she did not breach ministerial code in Salmond row
NICOLA Sturgeon last night vowed to fight on as Scotland’s First Minister as she was cleared of breaching the ministerial code over the Alex Salmond affair.
But the SNP leader will face fresh turmoil today as a Holyrood committee will publish a report finding that she misled MSPs.
Miss Sturgeon was boosted yesterday by the conclusion of an independent inquiry into her handling of sexual harassment claims against her predecessor.
Ireland’s former director of public prosecutions James Hamilton found she had given an ‘incomplete narrative of events’ to the Scottish Parliament about when she had learnt of the allegations.
But he concluded this had been a ‘genuine failure of recollection’ and so had not breached the provisions of the code.
Miss Sturgeon, who faces Holyrood elections in just six weeks, last night attempted to draw a line under the toxic row as she insisted: ‘It is now for the voters to decide who they want to be first minister.’
In a defiant television interview, she declared: ‘I’ll be putting myself forward as the candidate ... because there’s a big job of work to be done to continue to lead this country through a pandemic. I believe I’m the right person to do that.’
But the clash involving the two titans of the independence movement has rocked Scotland and hit Miss Sturgeon’s ratings, with the SNP no longer on course for a majority, according to polls.
That threatens her plans to push for a second independence referendum after the SNP published a draft bill yesterday.
Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross said that Miss Sturgeon is not ‘free and clear’ as the Holyrood committee prepares to publish its report today into the Scottish Government’s botched handling of the complaints against Mr Salmond.
‘The First Minister promised to “respect the decisions” of both inquiry reports, not to pick and choose which one suits her and try to discredit the other,’ he said.
Mr Salmond was awarded £512,250 in legal fees after the Scottish Government admitted it had acted unlawfully in the way it handled harassment allegations made by two women.
The former first minister later faced criminal charges relating to sexual assault, but was acquitted on all 13 counts in March last year.
One of the key issues at the centre of the row has been Miss Sturgeon’s changing account of when she learnt about the misconduct complaints against her predecessor. The First Minister initially told MSPs she became aware only when she met Mr Salmond at her home on April 2, 2018.
But it later emerged she had discussed the allegations with Mr Salmond’s chief of staff, Geoff Aberdein, in her Holyrood office four days earlier.
Miss Sturgeon said she had forgotten the contents of her discussion with Mr Aberdein as it was her meeting with Mr Salmond that was ‘seared on her memory’.
Mr Hamilton concluded in his report, which was heavily redacted, that it was ‘regrettable’ she had not told the parliament about the initial meeting, but he found it ‘difficult to think of any convincing reason’ for her to deliberately conceal it.
He wrote: ‘I accept that this omission was the result of a genuine failure of recollection and was not deliberate. That failure did not therefore in my opinion amount to a breach of the ministerial code.’
He also said her failure to record meetings and phone conversations with Mr Salmond and others did not amount to a breach of the code. But he went on to say: ‘It is for the Scottish Parliament to decide whether they were in fact misled.’
A cross-party committee of MSPs that has been looking into the saga will publish its report this morning. Some findings have already been leaked, including that Miss Sturgeon did indeed mislead the parliament.
The First Minister last night attempted to rubbish the parliamentary inquiry by saying some of the members of the committee had decided she was ‘guilty’ before evidence was heard.
‘Failure of recollection’