BBC story here.
Mr Salmond used to be a local MP and MSP, though not my MP or MSP. I’m no fan of Salmond. I’ve written adversely about him in previous threads. I was delighted to see him ousted as MP. But this stinks of Nicola Sturgeon and internal SNP politics.
The truth will out and time will tell.
Note that as I am a UK citizen and the case is before the UK courts I will have to be very careful what I say.
Huh? As long as you aren’t inciting the murder of the arresting officer you can say what you damn well like.
That’s not correct. For instance, if any of the accusers uses a pseudonym in court and their real name is revealed abroad, I am not allowed to repeat it here.
See also this BBC article for England & Wales.
Wait, what? Sturgeon was able to get him charged with 14 counts of rape and other sex crimes, in service of a power struggle? Is that what you’re implying?
Dayyum, you Scots don’t play.
ETA: bolding mine.
Is “innocent of any criminality” a Britishism or is it a weaselly way for a criminal to say “I did it but I don’t consider it a crime.”
Contempt of Court laws say differently.
I’m no fan of Salmond either but as I haven’t seen the details underlying the charges I can’t speak to the likelihood of them being true. I’ve often thought the man was a sleaze but only in the way that all aggressive political operators are sleazy. I’d heard nothing before this of any sex-related issues, so this comes as a surprise.
However, I’m in London and Quartz is in Salmondland so for once I’ll defer to his local political nous.
The latter.
It’s been public knowledge (up here at least) that he’s been under investigation since the middle of last year. He’s already been to court to dispute the way the Scottish government investigation was handled
People hereabouts seem genuinely shocked. Sure we’ve heard about the complaints being investigated within the SNP but that’s been rumbling on for a long while and they were dismissed as SNP shenanigans. But for him to actually be charged, well, that’s another matter entirely.
This morning’s article in the local press.
With regard to the SNP’s internal shenanigans:
I assumed it was a way of saying “consensual sex”.
More detail on this is here.
The internal investigation was ruled unlawful because of a single process error. When the two complainants came forward with their allegations, two things happened. First, they were provided with “welfare support and guidance”, which is part of the procedure. Secondly, an investigation was started and an investigating officer was appointed. Again, part of the procedure. However, the investigating officer had been one of the people providing welfare support and guidance - which should not happen. The investigating officer should have had zero contact with the complainants re the complaint prior to the investigation. This was open and shut - once the point had been made to the government, it immediately conceded the entire case.
So the process was unlawful. You can form your own opinion on whether this was just an unfortunate fuck-up, (the process for handling complaints was new) or whether there were internal shenanigans going on. I tend to the view that anyone trying to sway the investigation wouldn’t do so in such an obvious and instantly fatal manner but it’s not a hill I’ll die on.
In any case, what the judicial review about the internal investigation did not do was establish the truthfulness or otherwise of the allegations. These have not been publicly tested until now. As has been pointed out, Salmond is denying criminality, which implies his defence will tend more towards asserting that any incidents were misunderstandings or consensual, rather than that there were no incidents. This sort of defence often goes hand in hand with claims about the character and habits of the accusers so one way or another this looks set to be an extremely unedifying moment in Scottish politics.
How many accusers were there? I can maybe accept that someone who wanted to frame him might be able to dig up one woman willing to falsely accuse him, but the more accusers there are, the less likely that looks.
He is dead now: