Blackmail plotters targeted Rangers expert

A FORMER Rangers administrator arrested during a probe into the club’s takeover was targeted by blackmailers, a court heard yesterday.

David Grier, 58, said an individual tried to extract cash using i nformation allegedly obtained by email hackers.

He said he reported this to police but the inquiry ‘appeared to go nowhere’.

Mr Grier is suing the Chief Constable and Lord Advocate over his wrongful arrest in 2014.

He said the blackmail attempt after this centred on a so-called ‘Charlotte Fakes’ database. This cache – said to contain 100,000 emails – has information from emails belonging to ex-Rangers owner Craig Whyte, which were allegedly obtained by hackers.

Details were posted on Twitter in 2013 by an account called ‘Charlotte Fakes’.

Yesterday, judge Lord Tyre ordered the police to hand over the database to Mr Grier’s lawyer, Andrew Smith, QC, who had argued that the police would rely upon it in their defence.

Mr Smith told the Court of Session that Mr

‘Police inquiry appeared to go nowhere’

Grier had told Detective Chief Inspector Jim Robertson, the senior officer who led the Rangers fraud probe, about the blackmail bid.

Mr Smith said: ‘There was in inquiry which appeared to go nowhere.’

Mr Grie r–who has been cleared of any criminal wrong doing–is seeking £2 million in damages from Police Scotland.

It is not known how much he is seeking from the Crown Office.

He alleges officers acted unlawfully and that prosecutors had no evidence to justify his arrest and prosecution on fraud charges.

It comes as former Rangers executive Charles Green was told this week that he is entitled to damages over a ‘malicious’ prosecution.

Alastair Duncan QC, advocate for Police Scotland, told Lord Tyre that if Mr Smith ‘provides us with a list of what he says is required then I will undertake to provide that’.

Lord Tyre said that an independent commissioner would examine the documentation to decide whether or not some information should remain confidential.

Referring to the amount of information which needs to be scrutinised, Lord Tyre said: ‘I’m not scared off by the volume involved. The job should not be unmanageable.’