Sturgeon: Apologise for your ‘inappropriate conduct’ Alex
First Minister says Salmond betrayed the trust of people who supported him
NICOLA Sturgeon has refused to back down in her bitter fight with Alex Salmond and called on him to apologise for his “deeply inappropriate” conduct.
The First Minister suggested her predecessor had betrayed the trust of people who had backed him for decades, and needed to say sorry and think of others besides himself.
In a combative testimony over eight hours to the Holyrood inquiry into the Salmond affair, Ms Sturgeon also rejected “absurd” claims of a plot against the former first minister.
She admitted her government had made mistakes, some “catastrophic”, in its bungled sexual misconduct probe into Mr Salmond in 2018, which he had overturned in a judicial review, leaving taxpayers with a £512,000 bill for his legal costs.
He was later charged with sexual assault and acquitted on all counts at a High Court trial last year.
However, she rejected his claims of a malicious and concerted effort to destroy him, and denied allegations she offered to intervene in the Government’s probe.
She said her refusal to stop the process coming to a conclusion by switching to mediation, as Mr Salmond had requested, was at the root of his anger with her.
“As First Minister I refused to follow the age-old pattern of allowing a powerful man to use his status and connections to get what he wants,” she said.
She apologised to the two women who complained about Mr Salmond in 2018, saying they were let down by a “very serious mistake” by the Government.
“Two women were failed and taxpayers’ money was lost, I deeply
SALMOND INQUIRY ‘I would never have wanted to get Alex’ Full reports: Pages 4 & 5
regret that,” she said. She admitted the high-profile case may make other women think twice about complaining.
She said: “I have a profound concern about what it means for the confidence women in Scotland have in coming forward, and the Government’s actions are part of that. I don’t deny that.”
She criticised Mr Salmond for failing to show remorse for his conduct during his testimony to the inquiry last Friday.
He showed “not a single word of regret, reflection or even acknowledgement” of his actions, some of which he admitted in a meeting in her home in April 2018.
“What he described constituted, in my view, deeply inappropriate behaviour on his part,” she said.
Asked if she owed the Scottish people an apology for having previously told them to trust Mr Salmond, Ms Sturgeon came close to tears as she said: “I trusted him and I am not going to apologise for the behaviour of somebody else.
“I do not think it’s reasonable to ask me to apologise for the behaviour of Alex Salmond. The only person who should apologise for behaviour on his part – which he was asked to do on Friday and failed to do – is Alex Salmond.”
There was scepticism from MSPS on the inquiry about some of her answers, especially about whether she had breached the ministerial code, but no killer blow.
Mr Salmond yesterday lodged a formal complaint over claims a Government official disclosed the name of one of his accusers.
The claim, which has been corroborated by two senior SNP figures, is disputed by the alleged leaker, Ms Sturgeon said.
The Scottish Tories, who had called on Ms Sturgeon to resign over claims she had misled Parliament about meetings with Mr Salmond, said she still had to go.
Leader Douglas Ross said: “The First Minister vividly remembers the details she believes exonerate her, then forgets entirely anything that damages her.”
Labour MSP Jackie Baillie said: “Time and time again, Nicola Sturgeon assumed responsibility for the litany of failures of her government, but still no-one has resigned for these failures.”
Ms Sturgeon’s spokesman said she had “dismantled ... the absurd conspiracy theories levelled at her and her office in this case”.
NICOLA Sturgeon has insisted she had “no motive, intention or desire to get Alex Salmond”, as she tried to debunk his claim that he is the victim of a high-level plot.
The First Minister said she had seen no evidence that “comes within a million miles” of standing up her predecessor’s claim of a conspiracy to ruin and jail him.
Giving evidence to MSPS five days after Mr Salmond laid out claims of a
“concerted and malicious effort” against him, she suggested it was all in his head.
“Alex Salmond has a tendency to see most things as being about him,” she said.
The Holyrood inquiry is looking at how the Government bungled a sexual misconduct investigation into claims made against Mr Salmond in 2018, which he had set aside in a judicial review.
Mr Salmond has claimed one of Ms Sturgeon’s special advisers said in late
2018 the Government would “get” him in other ways if he won his legal action.
After Mr Salmond won his judicial review, he was charged with sexual assault, leading to a High Court trial last year at which he was acquitted on all counts.
Asked if getting Mr Salmond had been her goal, Ms Sturgeon said: “It wasn’t. Absolutely, emphatically not.
“Alex Salmond has been, and I have said this many times, one of the closest people to me in my entire life.
“I would never have wanted to get Alex Salmond, and I would never, ever have wanted any of this to happen.
“If I could have, short of brushing complaints under the carpet which would have been wrong to me, if I could turn the clock back and find legitimate ways that none of this would ever have happened, then I would.
“Alex Salmond has been for most of my life, since I was about 20, 21 years old, not just a very close political colleague, a friend, someone in my younger days who I looked up to and revered.
“I had no motive, intention, desire to get Alex Salmond.”
There have also been suggestions the Government harassment complaints procedure used to investigate Mr Salmond had been crafted with him in mind.
Ms Sturgeon denied the procedure was a “bespoke Alex Salmond policy”.
She said: “Even in the days when we were besties, Alex Salmond has a tendency to see most things as being about him.
“I think to see it in that way really ignores what was happening globally at that time. This was about the ‘Metoo’ revelations [in late 2017 when the policy was drawn up].
“If I’d taken my red pen and crossed out former ministers then I would legitimately be sitting here right now getting a lot of criticism. The policy was not put in place because of Alex Salmond, but nor did I allow any considerations to influence the decisions I took on that.”
The Government’s Permanent Secretary, Leslie Evans, told Mr Salmond on August 22 she intended to make a public statement about the Government probe, which until then had been secret.
After he threatened legal action to stop her, Ms Evans backed down, but the next day the Daily Record got wind of the fact of the investigation’s existence and published a story.
Two days after that, it published details of the complaints against Mr Salmond.
Ms Sturgeon denied that she or anyone acting on her authority or instruction had leaked information to the newspaper. However, she admitted there had been no police action to find out who did leak it.
She said it was right that the complaints against Mr Salmond had not been swept under the carpet, but on one level it would have been easier for her if there had been no publicity.
She said: “That is not the same thing as saying I wanted this to be in the public domain. The thought of this becoming public, and I would have to comment on it, horrified me. Absolutely horrified me. It made me feel physically sick.
“I would have been very relieved if it had
Alex Salmond has been one of the closest people to me in my entire life. I would never ever have wanted any of this to happen
The thought of this becoming public, and I would have to comment on it, horrified me. Absolutely horrified me. It made me feel physically sick
never come out into the public domain.
“I had nothing to gain from it and only a lot of pain and grief associated with it.”
Mr Salmond has claimed the plot against him included Ms Sturgeon’s husband, SNP chief executive Peter Murrell, SNP chief operating officer Susan Ruddick, SNP compliance officer Ian Mccann, and Ms Sturgeon’s chief of staff, Liz Lloyd.
He claimed they had been motivated by the judicial review, which they regarded as calamitous for Ms Sturgeon, and alleged they went on a fishing exercise for police complaints to give impetus to a criminal investigation that started in late 2018.
He said the goal had been to have the police investigation “overtake” the judicial review, allowing the Government to have it paused, or “sisted”, or to eclipse the loss of the judicial review with his trial. Ms Sturgeon said the idea was “bizarre”. She said sisting the judicial review had, naturally, been discussed at an early stage in the proceedings, given there was a criminal investigation under way.
However, a potential conflict between the two was avoided by reporting restrictions on the names of the complainers in the judicial review, and no application to sist was ever made. She said: “It would have been extraordinary if the question of sisting hadn’t even arisen in our considerations.”
However, the idea of “gaming the timing of the judicial review to allow a police investigation to overtake it” was “absurd”.
She said that would have required the co-operation of the police, which was “stretching the credibility of even the most devout conspiracy theorists”.
Mr Salmond has claimed that messages between Mr Murrell, Mr Mccann, Ms Ruddick and Ms Lloyd that were for his trial defence supported his claim of a plot.
The Crown Office handed the messages to the Parliament on Tuesday, and the inquiry members only saw them after Ms Sturgeon finished her evidence yesterday. They have yet to be released more widely.
A few of the messages are already in the public domain, and Ms Sturgeon said the texts she knew of had been misrepresented to fit a conspiracy theory.
Speaking about messages sent by various people within the party, she said they showed “people supporting each other, people talking to each other”.
She added there was “a bit of gossip about what was going on”, saying: “This was a massive thing for the SNP, particularly for people who had worked closely with him.”
But she stressed that people in the SNP were co-operating with police, saying: “Some of what has been misrepresented as trying to find or concoct evidence is actually people co-operating with the police at their request.
“I have seen nothing that comes within a million miles of backing up that central assertion Alex was making, that there was some kind of co-ordinated attempt, for whatever motive, and the motive seems to be on shifting sands as well, I have seen nothing that comes within a million miles of demonstrating that.”
She said she was also dismayed by suggestions that complainants had made up allegations against Mr Salmond.
“To this day, I don’t know the identity of every single complainer in the criminal trial. Some of those whose identities I do know, I don’t know them well.
“To the best of my knowledge, they don’t all know each other well.
“The idea this was some concoction or plot is not based on any semblance of fact or any semblance of credible evidence.”