My efforts to accredit to cover the Alex Salmond trial continue to be stonewalled. I therefore cannot gain access to the court which is closed to the public while the anonymous accusers give their evidence. Media only are able to watch via CCTV from a media room, which is where I am trying to get. The established media are of course overwhelmingly hostile to Alex Salmond.
You will recall the media behaviour at the coverage of the Julian Assange hearing. They turned up in force on day one and gave major coverage to the prosecution opening statement. The headlines screamed that Julian Assange had “put lives at risk”, and was just an “ordinary criminal”. They then almost entirely left, and gave virtually zero coverage to the defence’s comprehensive refutation of these arguments.
I suspect we are going to see a similar dynamic at play here. The prosecution led yesterday with its key witness and the most serious accusations. The media have used screaming headlines – today’s Times has five separate articles on the trial – and Ms H’s accusations are given in enormous, salacious detail. I am willing to wager very large sums of money that the defence are not given nearly the same level of coverage. Which is why I need to be in there to record what really happens.
I have established firmly that I am not being kept out for reasons of space. I have been passed around various officials, but the lady from “judicial communications” in charge of the court is willing to admit me provided the Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service (SCTS) is willing to accredit me with their media card. I filled in the forms for that and sent in the photo last week. So far no response from SCTS, except that they yesterday referred me to “judicial communications”, who referred me straight back to SCTS again. The old runaround.
I am extremely frustrated by this as this is the key witness (I know who Ms H is, incidentally) and key evidence I am missing. There are a number of other subjects on which I might be blogging, but the annoyance is knocking my concentration at present, for which I apologise.
I really wish you were there to give fair coverage . I doubt anyone in Scotland is expecting our current media to be even handed or honest and that is a reflection on their past history.
I think they are poised for a Harvey Weinstein moment but corona virus may yet beat them.
No need to apologise, Craig. We all know what the establishment is up to regarding decent coverage of the trial.
Ms H will shortly appear on the internet.
Monster
H was nearly unveiled on BBC Reporting Scotland today at lunchtime. The reporter outside the High court said the cross examination of Miss -then silence – as he just stopped himself from saying her name and then said of woman H will continue this afternoon.
This is like an old spy book – H and M and all that.
It seems to be the case according to the above reporter that H sent Salmond a text in 2016 saying how much she enjoyed working for Salmond and could Salmond help her with a project she is working on. Now I am not a woman but it’s strange if someone is a sex monster to want to work with them again never mind initiate contact with them. Wonder if tomorrow’s British papers will splash that all over their front pages.
Can you not get any kind of paid employment from traditional media? As you are always shaking your begging bowl, it seems that you wouldn’t need to get much pay to pass the 50% income threshold to qualify for an NUJ card.
Then there are those you know who could get accreditation and be in there. You have collaborators at RT, one who is currently indisposed by being in the dock, and George Galloway. Is there no one else in the media who you could come together with on this issue.
You do have many priorities, but a strategic necessity of acquiring an NUJ card needs moving up that list…_
It’s utterly disgraceful, Craig, that they’re preventing you from attending, the accusations felt like a stitch-up, they still do what with the unnecessary secrecy, it’s a payback for Alex Salmond for joining the RT network.
The problem seems fairly obvious. While Mr Murray is clearly a journalist – and a very good journalist, and one of the very few honest ones remaining – it’s that honesty that the authorities can’t tolerate.
As Mr Murray has told us, the authorities define a “journalist” as someone who works for one of the large media corporations. The corporations are under the thumb of government (or vice versa; it doesn’t really matter for our purposes). Therefore any “journalist” who works for a media corporation is effectively in the pay of government, and can be relied upon to write government propaganda and nothing else.
Yes, folks, we really do live in a free country!
Any chance you can speak to them in Russian and say you are a friend of BoJo?
Might get you easier access
Good luck or удачи
Craig
As you say, anger eats intelligence. In these circumstances it’s useful to focus the mind on a reliable witness, Allah, which also may stimulate His assistance. The more I hear about the cauldron of intrigue and betrayal in Scottish politics, the more I sympathise with sexual misdemeanors. Lying, spying and betrayal are intolerable. But these things being a common part of human nature , Islam allows a man 4 wives, which is a far greater concession imho than relying on strangers.
Giyane
Does it by any chance allow a woman 4 husbands?
Allah is a reliable witness? Good stuff – let’s swear him in and hear him give testimony.
What’s his number? I’ll give him a heads-up.
On the other hand, Islam might allow 4 wives but British law does not. So maybe Allah’s testimony shouldn’t be considered that reliable after all.
“You will recall the media behaviour at the coverage of the Julian Assange hearing. They turned up in force on day one and gave major coverage to the prosecution opening statement.”
That is typical media behaviour in Britain at any criminal trial. Sometimes they will quote the prosecution opening statement in their headlines, e.g. “Fred Bloggs ‘laughed as he stabbed his neighbour in the neck'”. Of course most readers will think those constitute a report of the news.
Regarding the closed sessions in Edinburgh, what do Scottish law and procedure say about closing the public gallery when a court hears evidence from an anonymous witness in a rape trial? That is what I would like to know.
Personally I do not agree that alleged rape victims should be granted anonymity when they appear in court as witnesses. First, the law should not encourage being raped or sexually assaulted to be viewed as shameful. That attitude discourages victims from coming forward and therefore it allows rapists to stay out of prison and continue raping. There is the belief that rapists like nothing more than to continue their humilation of their victims by questioning them in court. Well I am sure most of them would enjoy that, but I suspect that staying out of prison is much higher up their list of priorities. Allowing alleged victims to accuse from the position of anonymity plays to the culture of shame and by doing so, contrary to appearances, it deters women from coming forward. Rape is not a civil wrong. It is a wrong against the state, against the community, as well as against the individual person. That is what “crime” means. It is like beating an old man of 80 over the head for the £50 notes he has kept stuffed in his teapot. It is an especially vile crime. The second reason is that a man who is accused of rape should have the same rights as any other defendant. He may be innocent. The woman may be lying. He should be assumed to be innocent until he is proven guilty. If the woman is not prepared to repeat her allegations against him in open court, then that should be considered the same way as it would be considered in any other criminal case. The defendant – who has of course been named – should have the right to challenge her evidence and to challenge it in public. Judges have always had the discretion to intervene to prevent witnesses from being bullied or asked irrelevant questions.
HOWEVER, there is another point here. And that is that special rules do not apply to nationalist politicians who think they are God Almighty and who until recently held high office in the state. Those who want the law changed should lobby one or both of the two parliaments. Judges should apply the law as it stands.
N
“That is what I would like to know” I posted the answer to that question early on in the previous article.
Those are facts that a lot of us would like to know – although some do now, thanks to Cubby’s earlier post.
It would be nice if there were some way of “pinning” the post permanently for reference. Like a FAQ question.
This was one of the great merits of VAXNotes (later DECNotes). Notes files were permanent in principle; each file would start with a series of introductory, overview and procedural posts, often including FAQs. These remained for any reader to see, and could easily be found through the index.
It’s a pity that there is today nothing quite like VAXNotes.
Those accused of sexual offences are no longer allowed to represent themselves in court. Salmond can’t do a ‘Tommy Sheridan’ and sack his brief and defend himself. That has to be a breach of basic human rights surely.
Craig mentions on a Julian Assange post that rape trials in Sweden are held in SECRET. No jury, no public and no media. Decided upon by a judge and two politically appointed assessors, Only the charges and verdict is made public.
A look at the Scottish Goverments own website in the publications section provides the questions and answers from a number of Freedom of Information Requests. In particular there are such requests with the headings related to the first process trial which Alex Salmond won but also others relating to the current criminal trial.
If you have the time it may be informative to look at some of them e.g. 13/9/2019. This cannot be contempt of court (I hope) as it is the Scot gov that has published the info on its website – presumably as it has to do under FOI laws. In some of them the refusal to provide the info requested and the reasons why could be informative.
I will say no more.
It’s worth re-reading Craig’s previous post on the civil case (as many others are I think, as its on the ‘most popular posts’ list!) Cubby, I think the civil case should have went for judicial review of the process, and it wasn’t a good look for the government to pull it, but it’s all on hold until the criminal case is over (or might be relevant to it, as I suspect it will)
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/08/the-alex-salmond-fit-up/comment-page-1/#comments
Contrary
I read it at the time as a lurker. Nothing has occurred since then to make me doubt any of its points/conclusions.
Craig, I share your annoyance and disappointment that you cannot report directly from the trial.
I am annoyed and disappointed by so many aspects of this whole matter but the YES movement will only continue to grow as more and more people see the true nature of the British Nationalist media in Scotland and the true nature of the British state.
Please don’t give up Craig.
Saor Alba
Who was the “celebrity” who was being entertained at Bute House on one of the occasions when Woman H alleges she was sexually assaulted by Alex Salmond?
According to the BBC, the witness “said she had been working at Bute House one night in June [2014] when Mr Salmond had been hosting a celebrity to see how he could ‘facilitate other people in his peer group’ to also support independence.”
I suspect by “peer group” the BBC scribe means “fanbase”. (How on earth does a person get a job at the BBC? As if we don’t know!) The celebrity is male, sounds fairly young – probably a musician, possibly a comedian. Who could it be? Why is his name being kept out of the trial? Have his management people “established an understanding” with the judge’s chambers? Many of us know what the pockets in barristers’ gowns are for, namely “honoraria”.
There’s a list of “celebrity” musicians who endorsed Scottish independence here. I haven’t a clue who most of them are. Perhaps they are “celebrities” in their own streets. If anybody has got the time, it should be possible to whittle the list down to two or three. It’s unlikely to be Morrissey or Billy Bragg. Was it Pat Kane?
I’m curious as to what “celebrity” considered telling his punters to vote nationalist but now that Salmond is in the dock six years later he doesn’t want anybody to know that he was in the building with Salmond on the evening that the alleged offence occurred. What’s the problem?
The bones of the matter will be resolved in the cross examination of Woman H. Woman H described a very serious sexual assault and an attempted rape yesterday. “I have a boyfriend” hmm? Possibly there is a short word omitted from the end of that sentence.
If (and it seems likely) the two “assaults” described yesterday were the subject of the original investigation, if you were the Line manager dealing with the complaint, would you let the situation be resolved by an apology? A very serious sexual assault and an an attempted rape, but hey, an apology and a handshake and all’s forgiven.
It seems that in Auld Reekie the dugs in the street know the background to this element of the trial.
Woman H said she wasn’t attracted to him, a statement from which it is possible to draw conclusions out of context, but we don’t know whether she also said that having sex with him was out of the question because he was married.
When she is cross-examined by the defence at least we should get an idea of how the defence is playing its case. At the moment do we even know whether AS will claim consent in respect of this witness or whether he will say he didn’t touch her?
Ken Stott (actor) as clearly stated by journos covering the trial live via twitter yesterday.
Thanks, @RMcL. I don’t use Twitter. Any idea whether Woman H was asked any questions by the judge?
Maybe you all already watched this interesting, informative interview I’ve just found, unrelated to the current case. I hope it’s all right to post it here now:
“In the first of a series on the top ten political bloggers in the UK Alex Salmond interviews Craig Murray, former British Ambassador in Tashkent and now radical blogger, Scottish Nationalist and fierce critic of Whitehall Foreign policy.”
Ambassador of Controversy — Alex Salmond — May 9, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3dx3x05gYg
“Once the youngest Ambassador in the UK Foreign Office Mr Murray paid a high personal price for his determination to expose human rights abuses and extraordinary rendition in Uzbekistan. He has now found a new career as the author of one of the most controversial political blogs in the UK.”
Part Two | Ambassador of Controversy — Alex Salmond — May 16, 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa1KQHmLPs8
Past Craig’s articles:
Search: Alex Salmond site:craigmurray.org.uk
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Alex+Salmond%22+site:craigmurray.org.uk
And two recent press articles, Craig is briefly mentioned in the first one:
Iain Macwhirter: Alex Salmond … the trial that could split the SNP from top to bottom | HeraldScotland | 8th March
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18289801.iain-macwhirter-alex-salmond-trial-split-snp-top-bottom/
On reporting restrictions, concerning guilt or innocence, etc.:
The Alex Salmond trial and the dangers of writing about it | The National | 8th March
https://www.thenational.scot/news/18289604.alex-salmond-trial-dangers-writing/
“So far no response from SCTS, except that they yesterday referred me to “judicial communications”, who referred me straight back to SCTS again. The old runaround.”
Run around indeed, you’ll get it for the next four weeks I think, pity that, I was looking forward to reading a similar excellent unbiased report on the trial as you did with Assange.
Phil Sim, not a patch on your good self, when it comes to reporting the facts, I might add, has snippets from the second day coverage.
https://mobile.twitter.com/BBCPhilipSim?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
Whilst we’re on the Scottish judical service.
Interesting to note, as a particular trial in Scotland enters its second day, that today is crunch day on whether or not a 2012 petition leads to Scottish judges registering their financial and other interests.
Opposing the move are Justice secretary Humza Yousaf and Scotlands most senior judge and head of the judiciary Lord Carloway.
Carloways predecessor Lord Gill, agreed in 2014 to keep a register of judges recusals, however its understood that it hasn’t been kept on the 250 plus justicies, despite assurances from the Judiciary office.
Maybe you have to go ask for a media card to cover some other trial somewhere else.
Presumably the card is a pass into generally all courts ‘space permitting’ of course.
The fact that these accusers have been granted anonymity is a disgrace and surely is working against justice the very thing that the courts and the judges are supposed to uphold well the names of the judges and the lawyers are not anonymous so we can judge them at the end of it ..As I see it is only the accusers word against A.S. And I know who I believe !!!
@Blair – AS has yet to give his account of how he spent that evening. The jurors will be able to form their opinions on who is telling the truth and who is lying on the basis of what the witnesses say in front of them, and how the witnesses cope when their evidence is challenged, rather than from what they read in the media. Let us hope both Woman H and the defendant are competently cross-examined.
The UK is a totalitarian state with only democratic trimmings to cover it up.
No RT coverage for one of their contributors?
Thanks so much, Craig for this blog.
Glad you’re translated in several languages here nd there.
Endure.
Those who weren’t selected for the jury will know the names of Ms H and the rest of Salmond’s accusers as the clerk of the court reads out the names of all the parties involved and asks if you know any of them before they begin the ballot.
Abby
Good point.
Is it ‘contempt of court’ for Counsel for the Defence to record proceedings on some device or other?
That is how I would get you the details, albeit second-hand, non-visually and only in spoken form, not 3D body language etc.
Nacht und Nabel !
All of this is straight out of the Nazi playbook. This is the state taking control, destroying its enemies, frustrating all semblance of democracy, a free press and a rule of law.
But it will all end in tears. Painful as it often ends up all fascist regimes fall eventually. An so will this one. Keep at it Craig. The state’s denial of your access to report on a stage managed in camera show trial, and the threat of personal prosecution, exposes the establishment regime for what it is.
And like the horror that was the British involvement in Northern Ireland, they will not win.
The Nazi party had its own courts. For a comparison, think of the Catholic church in Ireland.
Contempt of Court
It’s there hitting everyone in Scotland who goes in to a newsagent in Scotland. The British Nationalist papers let rip with massive headlines that you could see from 20 yards away. Every one implicitly agreeing with the complainant’s comments.
Contrast that with The National headline (the one newspaper in Scotland that supports Scottish independence).
Woman claims she felt “hunted” as Salmond trial begins.
In a smaller font below – Alleged victim gives evidence on day one of former First Minister’s trial for sexual offences.
Note the correct use of – claims and alleged. All the other British nationalist papers pander to the baying Britnat mob who smell blood. The mob do not want the words alleged or claims. They hate Salmond and they want blood. Burn the witch – oops sorry it should be burn the bastard.
Will jurors go in to a newsagent this morning? If they do they won’t see anything about the corona virus or Brexit or the UK budget due tomorrow.
These Britnat papers are the trusted media let in to the court. The only thing you can trust them to do is rollabout in the gutter spouting lies and propangada to try and save the crumbling British state.
The “celebrity” – if you can even call him that – was Ken Stott.
Thanks for this info, @Annie. I wonder whether he witnessed anything that evening that the court should know about.
N
Yes perhaps he witnessed his steak was overlooked.
Well, Craig, from what you say here, perhaps we can suppose that you have more time on your hands than you anticipated this week. What to do with that time? I think it would be nice of you to provide another piece of satirical entertainment for us. I bet you’ve got a lot more material up your sleeve too.
I notice a few of the usual suspects in the comments talking about the nasty panto-villains, the British media. They are there playing their part, for sure, as you’d expect, but this whole performance has a very Scottish feel to it; written by, directed by, and starring our very own homegrown talent.
Success has a thousand fathers and naturally we can expect them to come out of hiding if the show is a huge success. Ever the optimist, I’m filled with doubt on that score.
Hatuey
A lot of the time in Scotlands history Scotlands homegrown talent has been proven to be working for the British state. Has anything changed?
If the homegrown talent are puppets of the British state are they Scottish or British?
In answer to your last question, they remain Scottish. Calling them British would be to absolve them.
Nearly all colonies in the modern age have depended on cooperation with locals to a large extent. You’d struggle to find an example where one country invaded another by force and occupied over a sustained period without quite a lot of support like that.
A lot of people get confused by the Treaty of 1707. It’s really very simple, though. It was signed under duress, under threat of violence basically. The Scots understood that. They ought to have anyway; 15 years before that treaty was signed English redcoats were massacring Scots in place like Glencoe. That’s the real relationship. It was never a partnership.
Slaughtering “rebellious Scots” (from God Save the Queen) continued right through the 18th century until enough of them were either dead or gave up.
There’s a lot of psychology in these sort of relationships. Imagine a battered wife who puts up with her husband beating her up. We wonder why they put up with that, of course. Now imagine how different her reaction would be if some stranger came into her house and beat her up.
When you live with some bastard bully, or are stuck to them as Scotland is to England, you tend make allowances.
And that explains why the Irish saw things differently. The Irish sea was just enough for them to see the English imperialists for what they were — bullying colonising bastards. Call it what you want, Stockholm Syndrome or just fear, but, whatever the reason behind it, the Scots have always been too scared to admit the truth of the British Union.
The fact that some of them or even many of them prospered within that relationship over a century or two doesn’t mean a thing. Development, of course, would have happened anyway, as it happened all over Europe and elsewhere during the industrial revolution. Interestingly, that developmental argument is still deployed to this day as a justification for colonising places like India (“we gave’m railways duh!”) too.
Hatuey
But what if they call themselves British and think of themselves as British?
“The Scots have always been too scared to admit to admit the truth of the British union” – sorry but not all Scots and recent polls show a small majority have figured it out for the most part. A forced union kept in place by fear and threats and propaganda.
In the recent BBC programme – Historical Fibs part 3 Queen Anne and the Union. The part of the programme from Glasgow University with historical documents of petitions from the general public to the Scots parliament protesting the proposed union was 80 petitions against the union and only one for the union if three of its articles were changed. The general public were overwhelmingly against the union as evidenced by the riots that followed and attempted lynching of the Scottish parliamentarians.
In business terminology you could call it an unwanted aggressive takeover dressed up as a convivial merger to benefit both companies.
Now this was over 300 years ago. Plenty of time to rectify the matter and turn the UK in to a just and democratic union but no Westminster and the English like it fine the way it is. Master and servant.
The truth and objective reality doesn’t require followers. If people want to call themselves British, I have no issue with that. Their superstitious views about the Union, though, shouldn’t be allowed to hinder our understanding of the facts.
The interesting thing about the riots you mention is that they were reported, if I remember correctly, by Jonathon Swift who was operating as a spy in Edinburgh at the time. I’ll double check that later, but, it suggests as I have already alluded that relations between Scotland and England were fictitious.
Hatuey
Daniel Defoe the author of Robinson Crusoe was a spy and propagandist.
William Paterson the Scot who established the Bank of England was a spy as well.
And yes Craig, the world is indeed watching, and are aware of the steps being taken by the establishment to destroy the man who nearly delivered independence.
The world is also aware of the murky war that Britain recently waged in Northern Ireland with all of the dark deeds. In fact I recall an ex or colleague, who previously having been a career special forces operator ( British SAS, Canadian SAS and Rhodesian SAS ) telling me that whilst in Rhodesia, special forces detonated a bomb on a school bus full of children to discredit those fighting for independence. Ordered by Salisbury they were just doing their job!
We should all do well to understand the depths of depravity that our security services will go to protect the status quo, retain a colony and or resist a democratic movement. Scotland will be no exception, and things could move further as the currently strange goings on show.
Salmond, Manny Singh arrested for a march staring two hours too early, Rev Stu Campbell arrested on allegations of online bullying, Craig Murray threatened with prosecution and potentially two years in jail, Craig Murray denied access to the secret Salmond trial, the £8 million spent on investigating Salmond, the relentless exposure of the fooling Derek Mackay, the removal or should I say non inclusion of EU citizens previously registered to vote in the Brexit referendum, the relentless MSM bias, the industrial scale personal profiling of voters through companies like Cambridge Analytica, the examples just go on and on.
We all need to be aware in the fight for democracy. Because democracy this place isn’t.
Willie.
More than a few very good points there.
Craig,
Following the example of other commentators, I sent an email to “ [email protected]” last week asking about your access to the court, but have yet to receive a reply.
Best wishes
Good luck in your endeavours, Craig.
“Rules based order” has come home to roost.
Time for regime change.
Question for Craig.
Do you know when the trial will be opened to the public, if ever?
It runs for 4 weeks, I doubt they’ll open the doors before its conclusion, God forbid any objective reporting reaches social media, maybe they’ll throw them open for his sentencing for maximum unionist sensationalism.
ROS
Exactly what I was worried about.
Justice needs to be seen to be done for it to be justice.