Key Rangers takeover figure in damages bid
AKEY Rangers takeover figure who a judge ruled should not have been prosecuted in connection with club fraud allegations is fighting a failure to win a multimillion pound malice claim against Scotland’s senior law officer and police chief.
Business consultant David Grier of Duff and Phelps had been seeking £5 million damages from the Lord Advocate and £9m from Police Scotland over wrongful arrest.
Mr Grier, 58, from London, who had also demanded a public apology from officials said the arrest had been a “career-ending moment”.
Court of Session judge Lord Tyre has already ruled there was no “probable cause” to prosecute Mr Grier and a continuing case had tried to establish malice and the amount of damage caused.
But in January, Lord Tyre said that Mr Grier had not made out a case that there was malicious prosecution.
The case comes after ex-Rangers administrators David Whitehouse and Paul Clark of Duff and Phelps, agreed a settlement estimated to be around £24m after an agreement in their malicious prosecution case against the Lord Advocate and the Chief Constable was reached “extra-judicially”.
Yesterday, Mr Grier launched his appeal against Lord Tyre’s ruling in the Court of Session in Edinburgh.
Mr Grier, an insolvency expert also with Duff and Phelps, was charged in 2014 along with a number of other men during an investigation into how Mr Whyte bought the company that ran the Glasgow football club three years earlier.
He said police arrested him at his home in the south of England at 6am and drove him north to Glasgow.
Mr Grier, a key figure in businessman Craig Whyte’s purchase of Rangers from Sir David Murray for £1 in May 2011, said that many years after his arrest, he still had no idea why he was prosecuted over his involvement.
Mr Whitehouse, Mr Clark, Mr Grier and four others were subjected to detention and criminal proceedings in relation to fraud allegations in the wake of Craig Whyte’s disastrous purchase of Rangers and its subsequent sale before a judge dismissed all charges.
The police investigation was launched against a backdrop of the controversial nature of Mr Whyte’s nine-months in charge which ended with the club’s business going into administration with debts soaring over £100m while the team ended up relegated to the bottom rung of the Scottish football pyramid.
Mr Whyte had agreed to take on Rangers’ financial obligations, which included an £18m bank debt, a potential £72m ‘big tax case’ bill, a £2.8m “small tax case” liability, £1.7m for stadium repairs, £5m for players and £5m in working capital. But he controversially helped fund his takeover by setting up a loan in advance from London-based investment firm Ticketus against rights to three to four years of future club season ticket sales in a bid to raise £24m and pay off bank debt as part of a share purchase agreement with Sir David Murray.
Mr Grier has always said he was unaware that London finance firm Ticketus funded Mr Whyte’s controversial purchase of the club by buying up rights to future season tickets.
But officers suspected Mr Grier, of London, had broken the law during the sale of the Ibrox side and the businessman was charged with fraud, conspiracy, a charge under the Proceeds of Crime Act and a charged of attempting to pervert the course of justice – before the case was dropped.
Prosecutors and the police argue that they had a degree of reasonable cause to pursue Mr Grier.
The Chief Constable argued that officers formed a “reasonable belief” that he was implicated in criminal wrongdoing and had assisted in a fraudulent scheme.
In lengthy findings Lord Tyre said he was also “not persuaded” that there was anything that supported an “improper motive” in the the police and prosecutors pursuing a case against Mr Grier.
Appeal judges are expected to hear the arguments for and against Lord Tyre’s conclusions in October.