UPDATE
My new appeal for funds to continue my legal defence has now reached £42,300 of the £75,000 target. I am extremely grateful to all of the 2,053 people who have so far contributed to the top-up. The moral support from those who cannot afford to contribute is also very greatly appreciated. That is now £117,300 of the £150,000 needed in total.
I have today received a bill from my legal team for £60,563.40 in fees to date in defending the contempt of court charge against me for my reporting of the Alex Salmond trial.
In addition to this, I have paid a separate legal fee for a QC to draft a petition for a court to consider whether the accusers’ anonymity should be continued by the courts, given their continued participation in a high intensity public campaign against Alex Salmond and effectively against the verdict of the jury. I have also paid to commission the Panelbase poll proving that my blog was in no way a primary source of information for those who believe they have identified accusers.
In total to date £69,052 has been spent. Which means about £5,000 remains in the pot, and the main trial itself is currently scheduled for 21 January.
The Crown has adopted a policy of simply blocking everything the defence seeks to do: objecting to my witnesses, objecting to my own affidavit, objecting to the release of documentary evidence. In consequence there have been three preliminary hearings. Those who listened to last week’s hearing will know that these have resolved none of the questions at issue. The Crown constantly shifts its ground, or submits draft positions, and has not yet clarified the evidential basis for its charges, while blocking my evidence. They have objected to all of my witnesses being heard, and to the opinion poll being considered.
This has the appearance of what is known in the US as “Lawfare”. My financial resources are drained and there is a huge impact on me in terms of my time taken up – frankly very much worse than I anticipated – and an emotional strain too.
As a reminder, this is the list of documents from the Salmond case disclosure my which defence is seeking to access, and which the Crown is refusing to release.
To be plain, this is material which I know for certain to exist. I am not fishing. The Crown has admitted its existence in forbidding Alex Salmond’s own solicitors from releasing it to anybody, (including Alex). Much of this was kept out of the Salmond trial itself as “collateral evidence”, as I explained here.
The most likely next court hearing is to request the Court orders the Crown to produce this material. In effect, each court hearing costs about £20,000 in legal fees. It is now plain that I need at least double the £75,000 originally raised to get me through the trial. I am really very sorry to have to ask again, but I therefore need to request further contributions to my defence fund at this point.
I am deeply conscious that, the legal battle having caused my blogging output and depth of research to fall these last few weeks, there has been a drop-off in readership and in subscriptions, so I am handicapped in making this appeal precisely by the very legal battle I am appealing to try to fight. I also do realise these are hard times for people. I do not want anyone to give anything if it causes them even the slightest hardship.
I will post updates on progress from this renewed funding appeal. I have asked the lawyers to produce a version of their fee note which can be published.
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Happy to donate Craig and I’ll do it again. These people will face a reckoning.
Should you not be able to apply for solemn criminal legal aid?
Most top QCs also do legal aid.
All the best.
Just made a quick bank transfer, was happy to donate and will chip in again if needed. Thanks for your work Craig.
A malicious prosecution in Scotland? Never! Oh, wait a minute……
I look forward to reading your apology from Lord Woolf in due course Craig.
With each sitting of the court costing you c.£20,000 in fees, it’s not only the State that is taking the proverbial. Were/are there no Haldane Society (http://www.haldane.org/) members in Scotland/Edinburgh who could have undertaken this case?
Let the Truth be exposed !
It is a disgrace that no one has been dismissed for that ( admitted in court ) malicious prosecution by the Crown office and Lord Advocate against the Rangers FC Administrators.
It is about time the Justice secretary did his job.
Happy to contribute again, but at some time in the future it might be worth discussing why lawyers are invoicing people with such eye watering bills. Well of course we all know why. The legal defense profession is one of the ultimate hierarchies. You earn peanuts as a “pupil” but the chosen few make fabulous money. Doesn’t quite match with their avowed allegiance with the politically downtrodden.
Craig – we wish you well in your legal defence and have made a small collective donation to cover the increasing costs you’ve had to endure
Craig may I interest you in this course on how to conduct courtroom proceedings oneself (I have no affiliation). It includes advice on how to control corrupt judges. I have been very pleased with my results with it, and in my last case I was complimented by the judge. I’d recommend it to anyone in a court battle whether they have representation or not.
https://www.howtowinincourt.com/FrameSet.cfm?mTitle=QStartHere
There are tactics one can use when representing oneself which are not open to anyone representing you as you are not bound by professional courtesy to the opposition lawyers nor is your first duty to the court.
Keep up the good fight. Your fight is a fight we all need to win.
Police Scotland and the Crown Prosecution are now an instrument of political physical force.
In a dawn raid on Friday morning Police Scotland arrested 59 year old Sean Clerkin at his Barhead Home and took him into custody where he was charged for breaching the peace at Edinburgh Airport on the 20th of August 2020 when he displayed a banner declaring “ England Get Out of Scotland.” He was also charged with infringement of a by law for the the unauthorised display of a banner at an airport.
The gloves are now and well and truly off. And meanwhile it seems there were further arrests and Police intervention against demonstrators who attempted to protest outside Barlinnie Prison where Manny Singh is incarcerated for organising the last big 100k AOUB march is Glasgow.
With Police Scotland now an instrument of political physical force, and the Crown Office their back up we should all be very afraid of the dark forces now in play.
I’ll certainly be donating to your defence fund but it is incumbent on us all to resist this march into a Police State where political expression is crushed.
Clerkin has done this before and got himself banned from Scottish Resistance.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/17605843.menace-nationalist-agitator-sean-clerkin-expelled-scottish-resistance-racist-banner/
I will be happy to make a donation. However, the best advice I can offer is that you need an editor. An editor would help you to navigate the topics to cover and steer your output around the legal minefields.
Donated £101
on top of my usual subscription; I wonder Craig if you can get an ICT student to correlate those of your readers/posters that actually donate in appreciation of your hyper accurate journalism, to find which of the posters on your blog are simply third-generation nudging personas?
You wont remember, but shortly before the trial you described in a slightly cheeky way your intention to write up the trial proceedings and I put in a comment saying you had better set up a defence fund.
They are going to try to grind you into the ground.
You need our support and for the second time you have mine.
Your contemporaneous reports of the trial were the only reporting that explained why a jury could find for Salmond
and left no doubt that collusion and some level of conspiring had gone on.
And yet the current forces of “law and order” expect us to believe what they tell us – seriously insulting.
So good luck. I will hold myself ready to send some more of my ‘good money’ when you next appeal.
I’d have more respect for your Legal team if they were doing it pro bono, or at the very least no win, no fee. But I will donate nevertheless. Most importantly I want to see you win.
Unless there is a slush fund somewhere, daring to spend mega monies on a lost case, the journous for jerked news association currently denying you a membership, should be voicing concerns over the apparent ease with which the Courts are frittering monies in pursuit of silencing truth.
you can be assured that I will support you, one must support the rays of light your work shines on a rotten system. £100, – for now, more if needed later.
Take care and best wishes to you all.
Happy to support you, Craig.
Happy to donate against political persecution by the Scottish state and judiciary….. but why hasn’t your lawyer made a formal complaint about what is very clearly a deliberate ploy by them to prevent your case continuing due to ever increasing costs caused by their intentional procrastination?
As others have also said, I will donate more if required.
Very happy to contribute. You are a most worthy cause
Thanks for your forensic insights, you are an advocate for humanity.
Good luck Craig, keep safe.
In a homage to his disgusting, abusive, bullying pal Alex Salmond, Craig Murray uses his access to money to protect himself from the justice a normal, decent human being would face.
I appreciated being able to read Craig’s account and also Mark Feldstein’s informative 1st statement, which helped me understand more about the context and issues of the free press, what is a journalist, how they tend to operate and the significance of Wikileaks.