Delivertruth
The Lord Advocate’s unreserved, albeit belated, apology to Messrs Paul Clark and David Whitehouse was an unprecedented, ignominious and humiliating experience for the Scottish government’s principal law officer.
The latest development in this saga is the announcement that the Lord Advocate supports an independent inquiry to establish how they (and perhaps others?) were maliciously prosecuted. Ultimately, such a decision is for the Scottish government, which hopefully will have learned from the calamitous failures culminating with the charade of what is now known as “The Salmond Inquiry”.
I know none of the dramatis personae in this tragedy but empathise with the personal and reputational damage to those innocents, their families, careers and that their professional and personal integrity has been so publicly traduced.
The apology does not address the pernicious vice which must have existed to have allowed these insidious events to have occurred in the name of the Crown.
The Lord Advocate suggests that the malicious prosecution was not based on individual malicious actings. Are the public expected to believe such humbug? Ultimately someone authorised those prosecutions. The exchequer cost exceeds £24,000,000 and there remain several actions against the Crown, in at least two of which it has admitted liability. The final cost is rising inexorably. The Lord Advocate at the time of this iniquity is now a Senator of the College of Justice. The Scottish legal system, which has been a bastion of our society for centuries and was once the envy of many, is now held up to public opprobrium and its reputation has been sullied.
The compensation awarded is the best our system allows to redress personal interests.
There is, however, a wider and even more important interest, which is that of the public, and unless there is an inquiry led by a judge from outwith Scotland with authority to hold those accountable for this atrocious abuse of power, including compelling witnesses to appear, we will be denied the benefit of the adage “that justice must not only be done but it must be seen to be done”. There is no stateable reason for delay.
GRAEME MCKINSTRY (Retired Solicitor)
Sandgate, Ayr