Nipper Salmond

[welshbairn]

Bam On The Run. 

 

[Savage Henry]

Bam On The Run. 
 

There should be a law against fraudulent Kickstarter projects. Anyone who gives willingly to Craig Murray’s defence fund clearly isn’t capable of looking after their own finances.

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

Publicly disclosing that youre considering leaving the country to avoid justice is most definitely the writing of someone who isnt a mentalist.

[lichtgilphead]

3 hours ago, Savage Henry said:

He wasn’t found innocent of all charges. You know that fine well.

Salmond faced 14 charges. He was formally acquitted on one charge halfway through the trial, when the prosecution chose not to lead any evidence. That left 13 charges for the jury to reach verdicts upon. 

Here's two quotes from The Guardian relating to the jury's verdicts (my emphasis):

"A jury of eight women and five men at the high court in Edinburgh on Monday found Salmond not guilty of 12 charges of attempted rape, sexual assault and indecent assault after about six hours of deliberations. They came to the uniquely Scottish verdict of not proven on one charge of sexual assault with intent to rape, after hearing nearly nine days of evidence."

"The not proven verdict on sexual assault with attempt to rape stops short of a finding of not guilty but leaves the accused innocent in the eyes of the law."

So, 14 charges, one formal acquittal, 12 not guilty verdicts and one not proven verdict. As I said above, I accept the jury's finding that Salmond was innocent of all charges.

Why then do you believe that "he wasn’t found innocent of all charges". Are you disputing the jury's verdicts?

3 hours ago, Savage Henry said:

There’s absolutely no questions or allegations remaining of “conspiracy to pervert the course of justice”. You made those questions up.

I'll firstly quote Salmond directly (from the same report in the Guardian that I link to above)

"“As many of you will know, there was certain evidence I would like to have seen led in this trial but for a variety of reasons we weren’t able to do so. At some point that information, that fact and that evidence will see the light of day but it won’t be this day, for a very good reason,” he said. (the very good reason was the beginning of the lockdown to deal with the coronavirus epidemic)

The report goes on to state that:

"In pre-trial court hearings, Salmond’s defence lawyer, Gordon Jackson QC, had told Dorrian there were text messages between complainants, Scottish government officials and SNP officials that raised questions about an orchestration of some of the allegations against his client.

Jackson sought to get some of that material admitted into evidence. In January he told Dorrian the defence believed “there was [a] concerted effort made by people in the government to influence this process, to get it as best they could in terms of criminal prosecution”.

He alleged those efforts were motivated by revenge because Salmond had won his judicial review in January 2019, after the Scottish government admitted it had botched an internal inquiry into two sexual harassment complaints against him.

One of those texts included one sent by Leslie Evans, as permanent secretary the Scottish government’s top civil servant, to another official after they lost the judicial review, which read: “We may have lost the battle, but we will win the war.”

So, in summary, Salmond appears to have wanted to introduce evidence of collusion between some of the prosecution witnesses during the trial, but was not allowed to do so. He has also said that this evidence will see that light of day at some future unspecified date.

If Salmond's evidence is correct, then there is a prima facie case against the alleged conspirators.

You also appear to have forgotten that there is still an ongoing special inquiry by MSP's into the Scottish government’s handling of the original botched investigation into claims of sexual harassment against Alex Salmond.

Salmond won a civil case, where he alleged that this investigation was unlawful and “tainted by apparent bias”.

The special inquiry was suspended during the course of the criminal trial, but will resume at some future unspecified time.

I fully expect Salmond to raise the matter of collusion as part of this enquiry.

[lichtgilphead]

4 hours ago, Day of the Lords said:

Having this shite raked through again is hardly to Salmond's benefit either. Does he really want all this pish as headline news for another X number of months? He was found not guilty on most charges and not proven on the other. That should be the end of it. Hounding these women does no one any credit whatsoever. 

So, the MSP's Special Inqury into the Scottish Government's botched unfair procedure used to investigate Salmond about the original allegations should be dropped in your opinion?

[Savage Henry]

The Guardian is not a bastion of truth. He was found not proven. That is not the same as not guilty. He was not cleared of all charges. Still, for most of us that is all in the past.

 

Collusion is not a crime. Orchestration is not a crime. There is no accusation of impropriety on the part of the accusers. The Scottish Government role is entirely a different subject, and completely unrelated to the women.

 

I’m done on this, but this is now an incredibly dull matter for the Scottish government and Salmond’s legal team to deal with, and seems to have drifted on to the lunatic fringes of the social media chat.

 

 

 

 

[lichtgilphead]

Perhaps if you stopped posting nonsense, we could bring this to a close

Here's the official Crown Office definition of Not Proven. It's bracketed together with "Not Guilty"

https://www.copfs.gov.uk/involved-in-a-case/glossary-of-legal-terms#N

Not guilty/not proven – Verdicts that mean there was not enough evidence to prove the case beyond reasonable doubt, or there were other special reasons for not finding the accused guilty. Both verdicts mean the accused will be free to leave the court and cannot be tried again for the same offence.

The actual Scottish legal term for collusion is "defeating the ends of justice" Here's a link to the number of recorded offences over a number of years

https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-18-03281/

Finally, the Scottish Government inquiry does specifically relate to at least one of the women. Jigsaw identification rules prevent me from posting further detail.

[welshbairn]

Interesting study here. Juries aren't allowed to be told how they should choose between a not proven and not guilty verdict, only that the consequences are the same. So they have to decide for themselves.

https://www.gov.scot/publications/scottish-jury-research-fingings-large-mock-jury-study-2/pages/8/

 

[topcat(The most tip top)]

I was a civil servant for 2 years about 2 decades ago. I never committed perjury but obviously I was ready to if the call came

[Granny Danger]

I’m not sure if there’s any other country that has the ‘bastàrd verdict’.  A weakness in an otherwise sound judicial system.

[Boo Khaki]

I don't believe 'not proven' is the weakness in itself, it's the fact it coexists along side 'not guilty'.

The task of the jury isn't to decide whether an accused is or is not guilty, it's to decide whether or not the prosecution has proven beyond all reasonable doubt that the accusations laid at the accused are true and correct. To that end, doing away with 'Guilty/Not Guilty' and returning to 'Proven/Not Proven' makes far more sense in my eyes than simply doing away with 'Not Proven'.

One of the things I always find a bit weird about jury trials is that the opinion of the jury is considered to determine fact. I think 'Proven/Not Proven' doesn't really emphasise that absurdity to the extent that 'Guilty/Not Guilty' does, as all P/NP does is comment on the credibility and believability of the prosecution case, rather than expressing an opinion on whether or not events actually took place. You could run the exact same trial twice and have two totally different outcomes by changing the jury. As things stand, this implies that the events leading to the charges both did and did not happen. Bizarre.

Anyway. People insisting Salmond wasn't 'found innocent of all charges' are splitting hairs and indulging in petty semantics. He's every bit as innocent as if all 14 charges had been dismissed before even putting it to the jury.

Edit - more than a bit worrying that 5% of jurors believe the correct thing to do is return a 'guilty' verdict based on gut feeling and irrespective of evidence 

Edited May 17, 2020 by Boo Khaki

[sophia]

3 hours ago, Granny Danger said:

I’m not sure if there’s any other country that has the ‘bastàrd verdict’.  A weakness in an otherwise sound judicial system.

and on here it gives a cynical voice to those with a political axe to grind to infer guilt.

[welshbairn]

3 minutes ago, Boo Khaki said:

Anyway. People insisting Salmond wasn't 'found innocent of all charges' are splitting hairs and indulging in petty semantics. He's every bit as innocent as if all 14 charges had been dismissed before even putting it to the jury.

Absolutely. I'm just concerned about where we go if witnesses whose testament is considered suspect by the jury for whatever reason can be hounded for evermore in the hope of perjury charges being laid. Might be more just to have a retrial and settle any remaining doubts. Which would also be a terrible idea.

[Detournement]

6 hours ago, lichtgilphead said:

So, the MSP's Special Inqury into the Scottish Government's botched unfair procedure used to investigate Salmond about the original allegations should be dropped in your opinion?

This either won't happen or will happen in complete secrecy. 

[Granny Danger]

10 minutes ago, sophia said:

and on here it gives a cynical voice to those with a political axe to grind to infer guilt.

We don’t know what the verdicts would have been had not proven had not been available.

[Boo Khaki]

1 minute ago, welshbairn said:

Absolutely. I'm just concerned about where we go if witnesses whose testament is considered suspect by the jury for whatever reason can be hounded for evermore in the hope of perjury charges being laid. Might be more just to have a retrial and settle any remaining doubts. Which would also be a terrible idea.

I think if there's a very clear suggestion that you've been lying through your teeth in court, especially when the accused is facing very serious charges that incur long custodial sentences, being placed on registers, and being stigmatised for the remainder of their lives, then yes, there absolutely is a public interest in seeing people tried for perjury and exposed as liars IF there is sufficient concern.

I'm not stating that I believe that all of the women in the Salmond trial were lying, but I do think there's enough about the testimony of 'woman H' to spark concern about transparency and honesty, especially so if they who I think they are.

Perhaps in the fullness of time Salmond's 'revelations' will spark some sort of enquiry, and from that it might well be concluded that a perjury case is appropriate, but on the whole, yes, I agree, I don't see any requirement to necessarily go persecuting or hounding every single complainant who has their case dismissed. The vast majority of people are honest and don't have axes to grind with defendants.

[Boo Khaki]

2 minutes ago, MixuFixit said:

I have a colleague at work who is of the view there is never smoke without fire and decides they're guilty before hearing evidence. He's been on a jury several times.

One of the reasons I've always been a bit wary of judicial systems which are content to accept majority verdicts. 

If you go with unanimous, there's a far lesser chance of a few opinionated idiots wrongfully convicting an innocent.

I accept however that 'unanimous' systems are known to lead to jurors strong-arming other jurors. I don't think either is perfect.

[Boo Khaki]

30 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

We don’t know what the verdicts would have been had not proven had not been available.

Yes, but 'not proven' is a bawhair away from 'not guilty' and nowhere near 'guilty', so in systems whereby 'not proven' is not an option, the only verdict that should ever be considered equivalent or appropriate is 'not guilty'.

The problem is the perception that 'not proven' translates to 'We think you did it, but the prosecution couldnae prove it', when in reality it's 'the prosecution couldn't prove you did it', which in reality is exactly what the verdict acquitting an accused should be. The daft verdict is 'not guilty', because that implies the events did not happen, which is entirely ludicrous considering the jury has no power whatsoever to determine fact. They don't have a crystal ball or time machine to go and materially witness the alleged events themselves.

It's how people perceive the verdicts that is the route of the problem, not the verdicts themselves. People need to realise that 'not guilty' does not mean 'did not happen', it simply means 'the prosecutions couldn't prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt'. That will never happen though, so the 'guilty/not guilty' method should be binned in Scotland.

Edited May 17, 2020 by Boo Khaki

[Granny Danger]

3 minutes ago, Boo Khaki said:

Yes, but 'not proven' is a bawhair away from 'not guilty' and nowhere near 'guilty', so in systems whereby 'not proven' is not an option, the only verdict that should ever be considered equivalent or appropriate is 'not guilty'.

The problem is the perception that 'not proven' translates to 'We think you did it, but the prosecution couldnae prove it', when in reality it's 'the prosecution couldn't prove you did it', which in reality is exactly what the verdict acquitting an accused should be. The daft verdict is 'not guilty', because that implies the events did not happen, which is entirely ludicrous considering the jury has no power whatsoever to determine fact. They don't have a crystal ball or time machine to go and materially witness the alleged events themselves.

It's how people perceive the verdicts that is the route of the problem, not the verdicts themselves. People need to realise that 'not guilty' does not mean 'did not happen', it simply means 'the prosecutions couldn't prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt'. That will never happen though, so the 'guilty/not guilty' method should be binned in Scotland.

That doesn’t detract from my point.

[Boo Khaki]

Just now, Granny Danger said:

That doesn’t detract from my point.

Then I must be misunderstanding you. 

Are you not suggesting that in the particular case of the Salmond trial, had the 'not proven' verdict been unavailable he may well have been found guilty of that one charge?