Macaskill’s defence of lawyer nothing more than a piece of pro-salmond spin

Kenny Macaskill’s article (Perspective, 2 April) is nothing but a piece of pro-alex Salmond spin. He presents it as legal procedure for dummies, so that we numpties might understand the ways of m’learned friends, but the reality relates more to SNP political infighting.

He defends the Dean of the Faculty of Advocates,

Gordon Jackson QC, for naming complainants in public on a train,during the recent Salmond trial, which would be serious professional misconduct. He then actually attacks those who filmed it – direct evidence the existence of which Jackson doesn’t deny.

I look forward to the spin employed by the Faculty of Advocates, as their disciplinary process lumbers slowly into action.

CRAWFORD MACKIE

Keith Row, Edinburgh

Instead of criticising Salmond’s lawyer, Gordon Jackson, for discussing an ongoing court case in a public space and naming witnesses Kenny Macaskill turns on the whistle blower, accusing them of spreading “poison”! I would have thought a self-professed legal expert might be able to work out who was in the wrong here.

What was most disturbing about Mr Jackson’s apparent indiscretion was the idea that he tried to “put a smell” on the testimony of the witnesses. This is not only nauseating but insidious. During the trial Mr Jackson admitted that he couldn’t “prove” there was something questionable about the testimony but he could “smell” it. I do not profess to be a legal expert but I am surprised that at this stage there was no intervention from the judge. Mr Jackson’s duty is to prove his case. If on his own admission he is introducing statements he cannot prove then why were they allowed? It was evident he revelled in his performance as a Hollywood movie star manqué. We will never know what effect it had on the jury. As to a judicial system which allows such characters to affect a jury by appealing to its sense of smell? It stinks.

COLIN HAMILTON Braid Hills Avenue, Edinburgh