I’M NO SAINT... BUT I’M NOT A SEX PEST
Salmond hits back at claims he sexually assaulted two female staff at his official residence when first minister
ALEX Salmond admitted yesterday he is ‘no saint’ but denied allegations of sexual misconduct towards two female members of staff while he was Scotland’s first minister.
The former leader of the Scottish National l Party allegedly carried out one assault at Bute House in Edinburgh, the first minister’s official residence, in December 2013.
Yesterday Mr Salmond, 63, told the BBC he ‘had made many mistakes’ in his life, ‘political and personal’, adding: ‘I’m no saint, I’ve got flaws – I understand that.’
But he insisted: ‘I have not sexually harassed anyone and I certainly have not been engaged in criminality.’
The allegations are understood to have been passed to police by Scottish government officials after an internal inquiry. Police Scotland said it was ‘not going to comment on whether an inquiry is ongoing’.
Mr Salmond claims he has been prevented from properly challenging the allegations by Scottish government procedure and intends to take court action to contest the complaints process against him.
He said: ‘I took the legal action I’ve taken with the greatest reluctance – for five months I’ve been going through this and my legal team have advised me that this process is defective, unjust and doesn’t allow you to state your case.
‘You don’t get access to witnesses, you don’t see witness statements. More than that, you don’t get o present your own case.’
He has called elements of the complaints against him ‘patently ridiculous’. But yesterday he said he could not specify what the complaints against him were because of the legal action he is taking.
Nicola Sturgeon, his former protegee who replaced him after he stepped down in the wake of the 2014 independence referendum, said the complaints cannot be ‘swept under the carpet’ despite the ‘extremely difficult situation’ created for her and the SNP.
She added the complaints were investigated through a system she agreed to and that the focus on process ‘cannot deflect from the fact that complaints were made that could not be ignored’.
Asked by the BBC if Mr Salmond was still a member of the SNP, she said: ‘These matters will be considered in the fullness of time. This has not been a party investigation.
‘I have limited information – for legal reasons that information I am not able to pass to the party, so the situation will undoubtedly develop as more information becomes available.’
As news of the claims emerged in Scotland’s Daily Record newspaper on Thursday night, Mr Salmond issued a lengthy statement on Twitter denying any wrongdoing and revealing that he was seeking a judicial review of the internal inquiry.
He said that for ‘many months’, on the advice of senior counsel, he had been trying to persuade the permanent secretary to the Scottish government, Leslie Evans, that she was ‘behaving unlawfully in the application of a complaints procedure introduced by her more than three years after I left office’.
He added: ‘This is a procedure so unjust that even now I have not been allowed to see and therefore to properly challenge the case against me. I have not been allowed to see the evidence.’
Miss Evans said yesterday that Mr Salmond’s statement contained ‘significant inaccuracies’ and that the Scottish government will defend its position vigorously.
She confirmed two complaints relating to Mr Salmond were received in January. They came after an internal review of Scottish government procedures on workplace complaints was launched in November 2017 in the light of wider concerns about harassment in Westminster and the Scottish Parliament.
As part of that review, a new procedure on handling harassment complaints involving current or former ministers was introduced.
Miss Evans said: ‘Mr Salmond was notified of the complaints in March and the details of the procedure under which the complaints would be addressed.’
At a news conference in Linlithgow, Mr Salmond’s home town, the former first minister said yesterday that his wife Moira McGlashan, a senior civil servant 17 years his senior, remains firmly behind him.
Asked if he had done anything to warrant an apology to her, Mr Salmond said: ‘I will tell you one thing that has encouraged me – friends and family, today and in the case of Moira over the last few months, have been incredibly supportive.’
Asked if he had been drinking before the incidents that led to the complaints, he said: ‘I think we will just not answer that question. You shouldn’t suppose the timescale which was printed in the Daily Record – I am not confirming that.’
Bute House is a listed building in Edinburgh’s Charlotte Square and is the equivalent of 10 Downing Street for Scotland’s first minister.
‘I have not seen the case against me’