Sturgeon on rack over bombshell allegations
FM faces investigation over aide’s role
EXPLOSIVE allegations that Nicola Sturgeon’s top aide interfered with complaints about Alex Salmond must be investigated, according to a member of the Holyrood inquiry.
The First Minister faces ‘glaring questions’ after revelations her chief of staff, Liz Lloyd, intervened in complaints two months before Miss Sturgeon says she first learned of them.
The bombshell claims emerged after Tory MP David Davis used parliamentary privilege to read out messages from senior Scottish Government officials.
They suggested Miss Lloyd was ‘interfering’ in the complaints process in February 2018, after two women had made harassment allegations against Mr Salmond.
It comes as the Crown Office last night handed over the key messages – referred to by Mr Davis – to the Scottish parliament committee holding the inquiry into the handling of complaints.
It means they can now be part of the final report due to be published within the next week.
Alistair Bonnington, former honorary professor of law at Glasgow University, suggested there was a ‘prima facie’ case of criminal conspiracy against Mr Salmond by some in senior posts in the Scottish Government and the SNP.
Miss Sturgeon yesterday insisted she still has full confidence in Miss Lloyd and refuted the ‘suggestions and insinuations’, saying they were the ‘latest instalment of Alex Salmond’s conspiracy theory’.
But Scottish Labour deputy leader Jackie Baillie, an inquiry committee member, said: ‘The committee has been obstructed in its work by the Scottish Government at every turn, which makes the revelations from David Davis, particularly about the chief of staff interfering with officials involved with complaints handling, really very disturbing.
‘I believe they require investigation because it may well demonstrate prior knowledge of both the chief of staff and the First Minister way back in February, before anyone had admitted knowing about the complaints against Alex Salmond.’
Lib Dem MSP Alex Cole-Hamilton, another member of the committee, said: ‘There are still glaring questions that the First Minister and her chief of staff need to answer about when they both knew about the existence of the complaints against Alex Salmond.
‘If Nicola Sturgeon is found to have misled parliament about when she first knew about the allegations against Mr Salmond, or misled parliament about what she told Mr Salmond she would do for him at the meeting at her house, then she will have to resign as First Minister.’
In an astonishing intervention in the House of Commons on Tuesday evening, Mr Davis said he had it ‘on good authority’ that there was an exchange of messages on February 6, 2018, between Judith Mackinnon – who carried out the investigation into the complaints about Mr Salmond – and senior government official Barbara Allison, ‘suggesting that the First Minister’s chief of staff is interfering in the complaints process against Alex Salmond’. Asked during her Covid briefing if she still had ‘full confidence’ in Miss Lloyd, Miss Sturgeon replied: ‘Yes.’
Facing a series of questions, Miss Sturgeon said: ‘Other than to say that I strongly refute the suggestions and insinuations from David Davis in the House of Commons, I am not going to have this Covid briefing side-tracked by the latest instalment of Alex Salmond’s conspiracy theory.’
Miss Sturgeon’s spokesman insisted that Miss Lloyd was not aware in February 2018 of any connection between the complaint
‘There are still glaring questions’
and Mr Salmond. The spokesman later said it is ‘simply wrong’ to say Miss Lloyd had knowledge of complaints about Mr Salmond in 2018.
rape Crisis Scotland yesterday issued a statement from one of the women who complained about Mr Salmond, which said Mr Davis’s claim that Miss Lloyd interfered with complaints are ‘fundamentally untrue and are being deliberately misrepresented’.
However, Mr Bonnington – who taught Miss Sturgeon – said there was a ‘serious matter here for the Crown to investigate’. He added: ‘Just why that hasn’t happened to date is disturbing.’
A Crown office spokesman said: ‘The material at issue was gathered and considered by Police Scotland who routinely assess information for the presence of criminal conduct. The Crown are satisfied that, having regard to the full messages in the context of other messages and the entire evidence in the case, there is no evidential basis to support a criminal investigation.’