Every single complainer brought to this trial is in the political bubble. There is something going on but I can’t prove it.. I can smell it
QC highlights communications between accusers in his closing speech
ALEX Salmond’s defence lawyer yesterday urged a jury to clear the former first minister as something “didn’t smell right” in the allegations against him.
While delivering his closing speech to the jury, who were later sent out to consider their verdict, Gordon Jackson QC said the case “stinks”.
However, the nine women and six men didn’t conclude their deliberations yesterday and will return to the High Court in Edinburgh on Monday.
Mr Jackson referred to one of Salmond’s accusers communicating with other women who came forward with allegations against him.
He added: “There is something going on but I can’t prove it – I can smell it.”
The jury had to be “satisfied beyond reasonable doubt” that the former first minister was “not an eejit or inappropriate” but a criminal, he said.
Earlier, the QC told how Salmond could have been a “better man” but isn’t guilty of sexual offences.
He said there was a “pattern” where “something that was thought nothing of at the time” has become a criminal charge.
Salmond, 65, denies 13 alleged sexual offences against nine women, who were all either working for the Scottish Government or within the SNP at the time.
Mr Jackson started his speech with a quote from one of the complainers, Woman H, a former Scottish Government official.
He said: “I wish for my life the first minister was a better man and I was not here.”
He said it was a “good line”, which was also used at the beginning of prosecutor Alex Prentice QC’s closing speech on Thursday.
Mr Jackson said: “If in some ways the former first minister had been a better man, I wouldn’t be here, you wouldn’t be here, none of us would be here. “I’m not here to suggest he always behaved well or couldn’t have been a better man on occasions. That would be a waste of my time. “But I’m in a court of law and I’m dealing, not with whether he could have been a better man, because he certainly could have been better. I’m dealing with whether or not it was established he was guilty of serious, sometimes very serious, criminal charges.” Mr Jackson told the jury to find the charges proved requires a “very, very high standard of proof ”. He added: “You have to be satisfied to that very high standard.
There’s only to be guilt in these matters, not because someone could have been a better man. There can only be guilt in these matters because of that standard of proof.”
Mr Jackson said Woman F – a civil servant who Salmond is accused of sexually assaulting with intent to rape at Bute House – provides the “most obvious example where his behaviour was not good”, said Mr Jackson.
He said Salmond isn’t accused of not being a “better man”, or that he “behaved inappropriately”, or that he “should have known better”, but that he “intended to rape her”.
Mr Jackson said Salmond and Woman F were fully clothed with their feet on the floor, and his client said “good night” after she got up and went to leave. He added: “How that turned into intent to rape – don’t ask me.”
The prosecution “never pinpointed a day” in May 2014, he said, when Woman H was at Bute House when Salmond is accused of sexually assaulting her. He mentioned Salmond told the court of an earlier “consensual” sexual liaison with Woman H in his evidence – what the QC termed a “bit of how’s your father”. Salmond is accused of attempting to rape her after a dinner at Bute House in June 2014.
Mr Jackson said businesswoman Samantha Barber gave evidence that she didn’t see Woman H at the meal. He added: “She said, categorically, she wasn’t there.”
Politics was a “murky, murky world”, the defence lawyer told the court, and referred to some women who made allegations against Salmond being in contact with each other.
The QC added: “There’s something going on but I can’t prove it – I can smell it.”
He later discussed the evidence of Woman A and suggested there was “something devious” and “something not that straightforward”.
Woman A – a senior official in the Scottish Government – was communicating with other accusers of Salmond, he said. Mr Jackson said he didn’t know what her role was, but there was “something that didn’t smell right”.
Salmond is charged with indecently assaulting Woman A in Glasgow in 2008 and sexually assaulting her later at an Edinburgh nightclub.
Mr Jackson also referred to Woman C – an SNP politician – and the charge where Salmond is accused of touching her leg in a car in 2011.
He said he didn’t believe it happened, but such behaviour would be considered “inappropriate” from Salmond.
It was “never thought to be anything criminal at all and, hey presto, it’s a crime in this indictment,” he told the jury.
Mr Jackson then referred to the allegation Salmond touched the backside of Woman K – a former civil servant – in 2014.
He described it as a charge to “bolster” the two charges which are “serious” – the intent to rape and attempted rape, which are “rubbish” themselves. He added: “This is scary stuff.” Moving on to Woman G – a
Scottish Government official whose backside Salmond allegedly touched in a restaurant in 2012 – Mr Jackson said he was going from the “comparatively trivial to the very”.
Addressing the jurors, he told them, “Please draw the line between being a bit inappropriate” and “serious sexual crimes”.
Mr Jackson stated “nobody is above the law” but “equally” it was true that “no one is below the law”.
Salmond, he said, was “entitled not to be convicted of anything unless there was clear evidence”.
Salmond was the “Marmite man” in politics, he added, and he would be surprised if the jurors didn’t have an opinion of him as a politician.
He concluded: “I don’t know what’s going on. I’m not suggesting you can work it out either. But I do know this – every single complainer brought to this trial is in the political bubble.
“This has gone far enough, gone on long enough, too long maybe, and it’s time I say to you, quite bluntly, to bring this to an end.”
The trial continues.
This has gone far enough, gone on long enough
GORDON JACKSON QC ON SALMOND’S TRIAL