Solicitors seeking damages over unlawful Rangers raid

Claim is made against Police Scotland as well as prosecutors

A FIRM of solicitors is seeking damages from police and prosecutors after the head of the Scottish judiciary said they acted on an unlawful warrant that led to an office raid during a probe into the allegedly fraudulent takeover of Rangers.

Newly released legal documents shed fresh light on last year’s raid of the offices of Holman Fenwick Willan, the London-based law firm which represented former Rangers administrators Duff and Phelps.

And it has been confirmed that Holman Fenwick Willan is pursuing a claim against Police Scotland’s chief constable and the Lord Advocate, the chief legal officer of the Scottish Government and the Crown in Scotland.

It is understood the amount to be claimed is still to be worked out.

The legal firm has claimed a breach of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights over their “private life and correspondence”.

There had been previous criticism in a costs judgment in favour of the firm released last week that Police Scotland and the Crown Office and Prosecutor Fiscal Service had “abused state power” in seizing privileged documents not covered by a search warrant.

Fresh papers reveal that Lord Carloway, the Lord JusticeGeneral, and other senior high court judges had decided the search warrant issued by Glasgow Sheriff Court in December last year was itself “unlawful”.

Craig Whyte is the only person charged in relation to his 2011 takeover of Rangers. A trial is expected to start next year.

Charges against Paul Clark and David Whitehouse, joint administrators of the club, were dropped earlier this year. Charges against their Duff and Phelps colleague David Grier, and lawyer Gary Withey have also been thrown out.

The damages claim is forming part of a judicial review, of which court directions are still pending.

A judgment released in Holman Fenwick Willan’s successful request for a judicial review reveals that some 47 boxes of materials were removed from the offices as a result of the search, despite the fact that the firm maintained claims to privilege over much of it on behalf of its clients. Five days after the warrant was agreed, Holman Fenwick Willan obtained an injunction preventing the removal of the seized materials to Scotland.

Two days later, the firm began proceedings to challenge the legality and validity of the warrant.

In February, Lord Carloway, sitting in the Appeal Court in Edinburgh, held that the warrant should be suspended.

In his February judgment, released for the first time, Lord Carloway said: “In these circumstances, an application to a sheriff for a warrant to search the first complainers’ premises to recover this material, without intimation, was oppressive.” He added that, if the solicitors’ Article 8 rights were breached, “it would have been because of the manner in which the warrant was executed without proper safeguards”.

A Crown Office spokesman said: “The Crown has taken steps, and will continue to take steps, along with the police and other reporting agencies, to ensure that the appropriate lessons are learned.”

A Police Scotland spokeswoman added: “We are working closely with the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service in relation to this matter.”