Fraught 5 months that could tear SNP apart
NOVEMBER 4, 2017: Sky News approaches the Scottish Government about Alex Salmond’s alleged conduct with women at Edinburgh Airport. Permanent Secretary Leslie Evans tells Nicola Sturgeon about the media inquiry.
NOVEMBER 7/8: Complainer, now referred to as ‘Ms B’ first makes allegations against Mr Salmond to Barbara Allison, the government’s director of communications.
NOVEMBER 9: Ms Allison tells Mrs Evans. NOVEMBER 7-10: The first draft of a new harassment policy for former ministers is circulated by government official James Hynd. It states that if the former minister is a member of the party in power, the First Minister will be informed of any complaint.
NOVEMBER 13-15: In emails with senior civil servants, Mr Hynd says officials ‘would need to alert the FM’ if there was a complaint against a current minister because she’d ‘want to know straight away’.
NOVEMBER 20-22: Second complainer, ‘Ms A’, raises concerns about Mr Salmond, pictured, to the First Minister’s principal private secretary John Somers. He refers her to Ms Allison and director of safer communities Gillian Russell.
NOVEMBER 22-24: A fifth draft of Mr Hynd’s policy delegates authority to the Permanent Secretary to investigate complaints but still makes clear the First Minister should be alerted – and it is sent to Miss Sturgeon.
NOVEMBER 29: Ms Russell contacts Ms A and Ms Allison contacts Ms B. Ms Russell tells Ms A she has sent her ‘narrative’ to director of people Nicola Richards and Ms A says she wants to ‘speak direct’ to the First Minister. Ms Richards meets Mrs Evans, who separately has a summit with Miss Sturgeon ‘to discuss development of the proposed procedure’, court files say.
DECEMBER 1: Mr Hynd sends his eighth harassment policy draft to Ms Richards, who says she wants to ‘test it with some key individuals’. She later admitted to sharing the draft procedure with a complainer.
DECEMBER 5/6: Ms Richards redrafts the procedure to remove the First Minister from the complaints process. She completes this draft at 11:34pm on December 5.
DECEMBER 20: Miss Sturgeon signs off the new policy.
JANUARY 16-23, 2018: Ms A and Ms B make formal complaints under the new procedure, with Judith Mackinnon assigned as investigating officer despite having prior contact with the complainers.
FEBRUARY 22-26: Ms Mackinnon provides Mrs Evans with an initial investigation report.
MARCH 29: Geoff Aberdein, former chief of staff to Mr Salmond, meets Miss Sturgeon in her parliamentary office. The First Minister has since said that ‘allegations of a sexual nature’ were discussed. But she says she initially ‘forgot’ about this conversation as it was ‘opportunistic’.
APRIL 2: Mr Salmond meets Miss Sturgeon at her home, where the First Minister says that she first learned of the complaints against him.