Post By Kirsten MacDonald
On Monday morning, Lady Dorrian and two supporting judges will hear the application from Roddy Dunlop QC for Craig Murray to be allowed to appeal to the UK Supreme Court against both their verdict of contempt of court for jigsaw identification, and against the disproportionate sentence.
It is widely expected, given the obvious animus against Murray she has shown throughout the proceedings, that leave to appeal will be refused and Lady Dorrian will commit Craig Murray to jail, probably from Wednesday 9 June. At that stage, Murray’s legal team will have to apply direct to the UK Supreme Court to grant him an appeal, but his eight month sentence will likely be served before the Supreme Court even looks at whether to consider it.
For comparison, the English High Court has not yet decided whether to hear the United States appeal against the decision to refuse extradition of Julian Assange, even though Assange remains in Belmarsh prison while they decide whether to take their case. Murray languishing in Saughton or Barlinnie is unlikely to be a consideration for the Supreme Court.
There is no precedent for an appeal against conviction for contempt of court in Scotland to be heard by the UK Supreme Court; we are in uncharted waters. It is possible for Lady Dorrian to grant interim liberation so that Murray is not jailed pending a decision on taking his case by the UK Supreme Court, and then further until they had decided the case. The UK Supreme Court does not itself have power to grant liberation.
But anybody who heard Lady Dorrian interrupt Roddy Dunlop QC six times in the opening four minutes of his mitigation plea, and heard her tone of voice in the sentencing remarks, would view it as very unlikely she will delay imprisonment. One experienced reporter said to me that they had never heard any judge so “emotionally invested”.
There was one moment at the end of the sentencing hearing when there was consternation among the judges, noted by those with videolink access. When Roddy Dunlop QC stated that they would seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court, Lady Dorrian’s air of stern control dissipated momentarily and there was a moment where all three judges were visibly, physically shifting around uncomfortably.
Lady Dorrian replied that any appeal would be to the nobile officium, an ad hoc court peculiar to the Scottish system which is brought into being where no other appeal route exists. That appeal would in effect be to Lord Carloway, Chief Justice of Scotland and an extremely close friend as well as colleague of Lady Dorrian, supported by a panel of judges all of whom work under Lady Dorrian, the Lord Justice Clerk.
The Murray team had decided such an appeal would be utterly pointless. There is very serious concern that the system of justice in Scotland has been corrupted, as expounded this week in the House of Commons by no less than Scotland’s former Justice Secretary, Kenny MacAskill MP:
Since the days of learning about the Gordon Airs case, HM Advocate v. Airs, I always assumed that those who were seeking to put forward information that was appropriate and fair would be protected. Yet in Scotland, in the fallout from the Alex Salmond affair, we have seen Mark Hirst, a journalist, prosecuted. The case, in which he was supported by the NUJ, was rightly rejected by the presiding sheriff in the borders. We have seen Craig Murray, a blogger and former British senior civil servant, now facing a prison sentence of eight months. That is not only shocking, but drives a coach and horses through a position brought in by the Scottish Government that there be a presumption against a sentence of imprisonment for less than a year. Their absence of criticism and their failure to comment has been quite shocking.
It is not simply cases brought by the Crown. It is the cases that have been pursued by the police, where people so much as tweeting anything that might be seen as possibly identifying a witness have faced a knock on the door from the police. That is fundamentally damaging to Scottish democracy. It is not what I expect and it has not come about by happenchance. It has been deliberate. It has been targeted. It is being driven by the Crown Office. If we are to have a free press, there has to be free reporting. That has to apply to bloggers as much as it applies to the mainstream press.
That people have been charged in Scottish courts and have faced possible terms of imprisonment for simply doing exactly the same as the mainstream press has done but not faced prosecution is simply unacceptable. There is also a reason that I am required to raise it here: it is that the position of the Lord Advocate of Scotland is no longer tenable. There has to be a separation of powers of having one individual who is both a legal adviser to the Scottish Government and also the head of the prosecution service in Scotland. That is no longer appropriate
Murray’s legal team effectively decided to break for the border and get the case out of corrupt Edinburgh. Roddy Dunlop QC argued that, by statute, the appeal against any ruling of a panel of two or more Scottish High Court judges is to the UK Supreme Court. There had been some legal consternation as to why Murray’s contempt case was heard by a panel of three judges in the first instance, which is unusual. It was perhaps intended to increase the thin veneer of respectability of these highly political proceedings, but it seems they may have shot themselves in the foot by providing an escape route away from the nobile officium, which plainly caught Dorrian completely off guard when Dunlop first raised it. Lord Turnbull looked around as if an answer to this development might be lurking somewhere behind him in his study. It was the most bizarre moment in these entirely bizarre virtual proceedings.
So Monday will be about the denial to Murray of the right to appeal. That a blogger might be jailed with no jury and no right of appeal, for a jigsaw identification which few other than Lady Dorrian were able to perceive, is a stain on the reputation of Scotland.
But not necessarily a black mark for Lady Dorrian. Many believe her ambition is to replace Lord Carloway, who retires shortly, as Lord President – Scotland’s top judge. The appointment will be made by the Queen on the recommendation of Nicola Sturgeon.
Lady Dorrian, while the Murray case was engaged in its painfully slow process, produced a report for the Scottish Government suggesting the abolition of juries in cases of sexual assault, and that accusers should not attend court or be cross-examined by defence lawyers. Dorrian’s public advocacy of this on the BBC alongside the Scottish Government funded Rape Crisis Scotland, will, to say the least, do her no harm with Nicola Sturgeon.
Murray is of course one of Sturgeon’s fiercest critics and opposes both the abolition of juries and the abolition of the right of defence lawyers to cross-examine accusers. The prime thrust of the reporting for which he is being jailed was that Nicola Sturgeon was behind the false accusations that were made against Alex Salmond.
There is a real possibility that aspects of Dorrian’s handling of the Murray case could come in for serious criticism by the Supreme Court. These include her acceptance of a handful of anonymous tweets claiming to have learnt identities from Murray’s blog (with zero evidence they actually knew identities) as having important evidential weight, her effective dismissal of his entire affidavits as lies despite hearing no evidence that contradicted them, her making no reference at any stage to Salmond’s acquittal (indeed both her judgement and sentencing remarks on Murray refer to Salmond’s “victims” and “offences” with no “purported”, “alleged” or other qualifier, even after the acquittal), her extremely low bar for jigsaw identification (to any individual who already had specialist knowledge), the breathtakingly draconian sentence, and the curt and offhand dismissal of all Article X ECHR freedom of speech arguments.
If Dorrian grants the appeal to the Supreme Court, she is opening herself up to criticism at a crucial time in her career. As one lawyer put it to me, to grant the appeal would be “asking for a kicking”. If she refuses permission to appeal, she is putting back any Supreme Court decision probably for two years, and giving herself the ability to imprison and silence Murray in the interim.
Murray’s team have very little hope for Monday.
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I have to say, it looks very bizarre Craig being imprisoned for a fault, even if it were true, that would usually merit a fine.
bizarre
That’s a strange word to use, implying, as it does, some amusement.
My personal choice would be vindictive
Bizarre does not imply amusement.
It implies astonishment.
A bizarre entry in a gossip column is OK, and even more, a bizarre comedy episode. A bizarre conduct of a court of law — not so much. The same with stretching, recommended for physical exercise, but not in the legal decisions.
Perhaps you’re talking about American usage.
bizarre
n adjective very strange or unusual.
DERIVATIVES
bizarrely adverb
bizarreness noun
ORIGIN
C17: from French, from Italian bizzarro ‘angry’, of unknown origin.
Yes, it’s more common in French, no doubt why I used it.
@John Cleary That’s quite a bizarre statement in itself.
Stranger still that Lady Dorian, once lauded by Craig Murray as more fair than the ‘corrupt’ Scottish prosecution service, should suddenly be accused of ‘bearing obvious ill-will’ towards our hero after delivering an honest verdict.
Only other point worth commenting on is: Gordon Airs – proper journalist; Craig Murray – self absorbed fantasist blogger and conspiracy theorist.
Craig – accept your guilt or you won’t get parole. You know you wanted to expose these ‘false’ witnesses against your pal Salmond. Leave martyrdom to the religious – rather than political – fanatics.
Well now Jonnyboy.
John Cleary
Condescension, John?
Suits you.
Jonny, better condescending than without a soul.
John Cleary
And ignorant, in the most basic sense of the word.
How mean & small.
“You know you wanted to expose these ‘false’ witnesses against your pal Salmond.”
Oh, so you’re one of those “the jury got it wrong” conspiracy theorists, are you?
Bayard
I’m one of those ‘the jury could easily have reached a different verdict’ people. I’m happy to accept the verdict of the jury. But I think it’s absurd to believe nine women would conspire to give ‘false,’ evidence, as CM puts it, against Salmond in the highest court in the land..
I believe jury verdict reflected the lack of independent witnesses to the alleged sex pest incidents.
All history now. Even Salmond has moved on.
After many years of reading multiple blogs, it has become predictably easy to recognise a troll. Usually these examples of homo sapiens suffer, or rather make others around them, suffer from their hubris by demonstrating their complete lack of empathy or grasp of modern ethics.
What an imbecilic comment you make. This isn’t the era of Tom Brown Schooldays, however deluded your perception of life in the U.K. maybe. Times have moved on. At one time the U.K. respected human rights and journalistic precedents and accepted solid arguments and rightly criticised prostituted legal process.
Now however it would appear that show trials that Stalin would be impressed by, is the goal of the Scottish legal system, complete with the inevitable tediously stupid toadying sychophants.
Internet trolls by their nature are faceless, anonymous and make gratuitous claims, criticisms, allegations and insults they don’t support. Maybe look in the mirror?
It seems the judges have taken the law into their own hands to get the results they want maybe the public.will be inspired to do the same ???
To a Sassenach domiciled here for 25yrs and I may add supporter of Scottish independence and admirer of the Scottish legal system, I give you two words to share with Nicola Sturgeon the alleged common denominator & joint architect of this whole circus unbefitting of her position I am – “bitterly disappointed” and find her position and that of her lawmakers untenable. At least two have had the good sense to resign / retire……………..
Because I am well-stricken in years I have become largely inured to the gratuitious excesses of the merciless British state, having watched them perform over the years. But even I am astonished by this latest brazen piece of corruption.
I am not particularly religious but I pray that there is a special place waiting for these contemptible people.
Good luck, Craig. You carry the good wishes of many people with you.
So — another vindictive and spiteful female judge in the UK, this time in Scotland. First Baraitser vs. Julian Assange, now Dorrian vs. Craig Murray. Add to that the obviously vindictive Sturgeon woman and you have a trifecta. It’s an outrage. Good luck to you, Craig! One day these women will get their asses kicked.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgDxvaCsZMI
tells you how to fix things – ‘pick someone who’s overdue for promotion’.
It was ever thus.
Presumably LADY Dorrian expects to be addressed with decorum, looking up to her at all times?
I propose whatever the Scottish equivalent of Joe Bloggs is called starts addressing her like a drunken Scotsman would address an English football fan at a Scotland-England shindig.
It might free her from her vacuum of highfalutin, self-serving, legal-due-process-be-damned aura of moral self-righteousness.
But only start doing so, were she to try and prevent legal due process being followed to the UK Supreme Court…..
Can anyone advise how far Dorrian’s writ runs?
For example, if Craig happens to be in Wales when his sentence is due to start, can he be extradited?
I ask this because if I were construed by Sturgeon & co, as having been rude to them, could I be jailed, even though I live in England?
If it were true, then I can imagine the uproar that would be unleashed across the whole of the UK, leading to action by Parliament.
“On Monday morning, Lady Dorrian and two supporting judges will hear the application from Roddy Dunlop QC for Craig Murray to be allowed to appeal to the UK Supreme Court against both their verdict of contempt of court for jigsaw identification, and against the disproportionate sentence.”
Any system that allows people effectively to mark their own homework is necessarily broken.
I agree entirely. There is something rotten in the state of Scotland and it needs rooting out by the supreme court.
So much for Independence. Too wee, too poor and too stupid to root out our own rot? Well, we must be if we want the English Supreme Court to do it for us.
Oh the irony!
May we look forward to something resembling the last scene of “Hamlet”?
I am so disgusted by the criminal and shameful abuse of the Scottish legal system, in the case of Judge Lady Dorrian. It is a very dark moment to witness her vial and unjust treatment of an honest journalist such as Craig Murray. I find the treatment repulsive. In the UK we claim justice, but what we are seeing with Craig and Julian Assange is not justice, it an abuse of the law and due process. I am ashamed to see this happen to anyone, let alone to two such honourable and good people, who have done a service to the public, which is tell the truth. Shame on the UK for being complicit in the torture, persecution and imprisonment of Julian Assange. Shame on Judge Dorrian and the Scottish courts for deliberately destroying the life of Craig Murray, with expensive and unnecessary legal proceedings purely to wear him down and now prison. The whole process is utterly repulsive and they all should be ashamed of themselves. Stay strong Craig, as we know you are. #IstandwithCraigMurray
I agree.
“In the UK we claim justice, but what we are seeing with Craig and Julian Assange is not justice, it an abuse of the law and due process”.
It is tyranny in the literal sense of the word.
Spot on.
There’s little hope that the UK Supreme Court would overrule Dorrian.
Assange’s continual detention at the behest of the US highlights the injustice meted out down there.
It’s a clear abuse of power.
Someone in SCOTLAND needs to organise a petition and present to the Queen to get Lady Dorrian thrown off the bench. Likewise protests should be held at Lady Dorrian’s place of residence or place of business. She should be shown the exit. The whole Scottish cabal should be got rid of including Sturgeon (a failed Solicitor) and her husband. Unfortunately the last election was wasted.
Lady Dorrian has been on the gravy train (first class only)like so many others too long in Scotland.
Good luck to Craig but I cannot identify the alphabet people and I tried from the Salmond case.
Craig supported Salmond but I have not heard a word of support from him for Craig. Disappointing
The gravy train only stops to pick up, never to set down.
Well, yes. I could not have said it more plainly.
I’ve been trying to understand this. The treatments of Craig and Julian put the Scottish and British legal systems into disrepute. Why would they do that? Its a trade, right? I believe that the leading political operatives still think we’re living the 1990’s. But we’re not. The cat is out of the bag. We know about Integrity Initiative, FCO funding of dissident media in Russia, the bullshit that was the White Helmets, Operation Mockingbird etc, etc, etc, (Skripals, Navalny, Ryanair flight, …). We understand the narrative control and their methods. So, they are shooting themselves in the foot. This behaviour enables the “bad people” (Russia, China, whoever you want) to use the exact same narrative control methods but from a position of TRUTH. This is disasterously stupid.
I thank the incredible whistleblowers we’ve been graced by, and the advocates that did their best to support and defended them. Whatever happens, Craig, we know you acted on principle, and we are inspired by your courage and personal integrity.
“The treatments of Craig and Julian put the Scottish and British legal systems into disrepute. Why would they do that?”
Because they can, and get away with it. These days, that’s all that matters. Morality in public office is so last century.
Well said.
Thank you for this update.
I wish I had the youth and the courage to do more about it. But in lieu of direct action, or class solidarity, which it seems are the only languages our elites understand, I have donated.
Thanks to you Craig, and also the many fine commenters on this blog. What times we live in.
“Lady Dorrian, while the Murray case was engaged in its painfully slow process, produced a report for the Scottish Government suggesting the abolition of juries in cases of sexual assault, and that accusers should not attend court or be cross-examined by defence lawyers”.
That proposal looks like something out of a science fiction dystopia invented by Kurt Vonnegut or some other savage satirist. As far as I can see, it would effectively relieve the prosecuting authorities of the need to have any real, live accusers at all.
The prosecutors could simply make up charges and accounts of what “happened”, and present these in court, and no one would be able to challenge any of it without suffering Mr Murray’s fate or worse. The prosecution’s task would be similar to a bowler in a game of cricket with no batsman, or a footballer taking a penalty with no goalkeeper. The dream of policemen down the ages, of course.
Of course no such thing could ever happen in our civilised, honest and decent society – even though it would (theoretically) enable any government to get rid of anyone at all whom it found annoying.
“Of course no such thing could ever happen in our civilised, honest and decent society – even though it would (theoretically) enable any government to get rid of anyone at all whom it found annoying.”
Precisely Tom – that’s its true purpose. To dispense with process and ‘off’ anyone the Powers choose at any time of their choosing. Sexual accusations have long been the weapon of despotic power – as with Salmond and Assange. Only cross-examination, (such as that which established that one of Salmond’s accusers was not even present at the alleged event – knowledge of which we owe to Craig) and juries stand in their way. So these inconveniences have to be removed – as do those who expose the corrupt practices of untrammelled power.
It’s the British way!
I think this is what is known as a try-on. It would be extremely convenient to the authorities to have such a set-up, so they are floating the idea to see if they can get away with implementing it without any political kickback. Such is the MO of the C21st.
Dear Mr Murray
I hope that you can successfully write whilst incarcerated. Be on the lookout for any pseudo education/rehabilitation program that gets you access to a computer and exploit it.
This is an extraordinarily frustrating but feasible process.
Please consider making a book out of your unique reporting of the Assange trial.
Be wary of prison “health services” as they are more punitive and uncomfortable than punishment units.
Good luck with your new career.
Welcome to a national socialist judiciary. That Dorrian woman comes across as Scotland’s version of Roland Freisler. I can’t believe that anyone in Scotland votes for the Scottish national socialists.
Please. Do not mistake Scotland’s move toward self determination and eventual Independence with a cabal of woke SNP imposters and a corrupt judiciary.
They are not Scotland. The people of Scotland are sovereign. And why must a national socialist always be equated with the Nazi german model? Too facile.
What is clear though is that the people using power to corrupt the judicial process having very recently come within a whisker of imprisoning the former First Minister, were just given a clear mandate to continue their programme.
Perhaps I am wrong- I live a long way away- but it looks from here as if the months of escalating scandals and the drift to the imperialist right were unpunished by the electorate. What its quarrel with the corrupt New-Labour party was it is hard to discover, the Sturgeon government seems, on major issues, to be as much its lineal descendant as the Starmer shower is.
If I were Craig I’d be in Ireland by now.
A fine post by Kirsten MacDonald and a stark contrast to mainstream coverage, none of which mentioned any of the controversial aspects of Dorrian’s handling of the case. (Let alone that she was almost certainly prejudiced by the light Craig shone on Nicola’s pushing of the Salmond trial.)
Nearly all the information the public needed to gain a tolerable understanding of this case was left out by MSM. This censorship by omission is probably the most potent propaganda technique of ruling class media, which still forges the established ‘truth’ in the public realm.
A gross miscarriage of so called justice.
Surely all the disruption and worry you have already been through has been a sentence longer than eight months. It is a prison in itself.
This is a vindictive prosecution with no factual basis.
There are other innocent people already prosecuted and in Scottish prisons who are without hope of release under our present system, if you do get sent down on Monday I hope that no matter how shocking it is that you will continue with the day job of reporting and analysing.
This political vindictiveness seems to me all part of our punitive colonisation.
Yes, our ongoing colonization is not well understood in Scotland despite the obvious reality of the situation now becoming very clear to any astute observer. As Aime Cesaire put it:
“….between colonization and civilization there is an infinite distance; that out of all the colonial expeditions that have been undertaken, out of all the colonial statutes that have been drawn up, out of all the memoranda that have been dispatched by all the ministries, there could not come a single human value.”
Quotes like that don’t make anything obvious and clear.
My apologies. I will try to decipher Cesaire’s message as best I can.
Firstly, “….between colonization and civilization there is an infinite distance;”
Colonization is what the UN terms ‘a scourge’ (i.e. an instrument of punishment and suffering) and involves uncivilized behaviour towards a colonized people by the colonizer and its colonial authorities, the latter usually including bourgeoisie elements of the native population who seek to protect their privileges and status under colonial rule. Colonization involves exploitation, oppression, racism and is at the very root of fascism (Cesaire; Memmi). Colonization is considered a disease of the mind which adversely affects a colonized people in a number of ways (Fanon). So there is indeed an infinite (i.e. endless) distance between colonization and civilization.
The above therefore helps explains the final part of the quote:
“..that out of all the colonial expeditions that have been undertaken, out of all the colonial statutes that have been drawn up, out of all the memoranda that have been dispatched by all the ministries, there could not come a single human value.”
What you may remain doubtful on is whether or not Scotland is a colony and therefore if independence is decolonisation, as the UN suggests it is. Perhaps this may help: https://yoursforscotlandcom.wordpress.com/2021/05/01/is-scottish-independence-decolonisation/
> This political vindictiveness is seems to me all part of our punitive colonisation.
I don’t see how you can call this a result of colonisation as it is a Scottish affair, judged under Scottish law, not British. On top of that the defence seems to have no recourse under the Scottish legal system and is turning towards the British high court.
From afar the whole business looks like a very good reason to avoid independence as the present ruling clique and system would feel even freer to do just how they like. The Scottish people by their voting and mobilisation, lack of rather, hardly reinforce the assumption that Scottish independence would improve the situation for Scots, quite the opposite.
Sorry to be so brutal at a time when one of the well-known and respected militants for Scottish independence is suffering in such a revolting way, like all the other posters here I just can’t believe that such a scandalous, immoral situation can happen in the “oldest democracy in the world.” This and the situation of Julian Assange.
I don’t see how you can call this a result of colonisation as it is a Scottish affair, judged under Scottish law, not British.
You would think so, wouldn’t you? Unfortunately not so.
This is the oath sworn by Dorrian:
Judicial oath
“I, _________ , do swear by Almighty God that I will well and truly serve our Sovereign Lady Queen Elizabeth the Second in the office of ________ , and I will do right to all manner of people after the laws and usages of this realm, without fear or favour, affection or ill will.”
https://www.judiciary.uk/about-the-judiciary/the-judiciary-the-government-and-the-constitution/oaths/
So, my friend. Which part of Scottish law makes Queen Elizabeth Sovereign?
For the moment she is your queen, just as James Stuart, the sixth of Scotland and the first of England was your king… This sort of oath seems an anachronism to me but not, apparently to the majority of people north and south of the border. It’s amazing that for the moment the SNP and others don’t seem willing to ditch the monarchy or the monarch. That would have been a major advantage of independence but one which is at present refused.
None of which changes the fact that Scottish law is Scottish and peculiar to Scotland, you can’t blame that on a colonial power. Similarly the post that this unpleasant judge is aiming for will be given to her by a Scottish first minister, not a British one. I’m all for putting the blame on the British government where it is merited but where devolution and tradition gives Scotland responsibility it must be accepted. After independence there will be no one else to blame, the easy way out will be gone… a bit like for the EU, often blamed for the faults of national governments but now this cop out has gone for Britain.
“Scottish law is Scottish and peculiar to Scotland, you can’t blame that on a colonial power.”
We can blame it on a colonial mindset. Remember in a colony there are two cultures, one of the colonized, the other of the colonizer, and the privileged bourgeoisie native mimics the latter in order to advance (Cesaire; Fanon). Our private schools and elite universities also reflect and sustain the culture of the colonizer, and this is where the privileged bourgeoisie elite aye running Scotland’s institutions tend to be drawn from. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/elitist-scotland
Craig is not being persecuted for non-existent identification identification of non-existent rape victims. He is being persecuted for his assistance to Julian Assange in exposing USUKIS war crimes in Iraq etc.
Zionists , Islamists and Bankers are the war criminals and as usual they make massive smoke screens to conceal their war crimes. Ok we drive at 60 round Birminghams clean air zone because we don’t want a speed fine, but if you expose war crimes you go to prison.
It stinks but it purifies the name of USUKIS to purge the planet of exposure of Islamist, Zionist and banker war crimes. You would go completely mad if you tried to connect Craig’s prison sentence to the allegations.
Giyane: the impression I have is that Craig is being targeted and punished primarily as a subsitute for Alex Salmond. It is clear that Lady Dorrian firmly believes Salmond was guilty, referring as she does to ‘offences’ (which did not take place; there were no offences) and to ‘victims’, whose claims the jury either did not believe, or in one case found unproven. I had thought that judges were expected to show respect for the law. Lady Dorrian appears to show contempt.
That’s why she’s moving to get rid of juries in such cases! She would have found Salmand guilty, despite the evidence from witnesses showing his accusers (all but one) were actually lying! A “judge” can overlook such details. A jury is not sophisticated enough to ignore the evidence.
Coldish
Yes, but that would mean she ‘s mad , rather than just playing empire2 meo-liberal.politics.
I’d prefer it if our senior judges were not mad.
Giyane – I think that she is actually mad. I heard from other sources that she is `incorruptlble’. I believe this. She isn’t acting out of self interest – she is mad.
At the same time, Alex Salmond now poses no serious threat; Craig Murray and his lucid, informed, incisive writings, do. `Though this be madness, yet there be method in it’.
What we need is impartial justice to be done and seen to be done in Scotland:
https://jaggy.blog/2021/06/05/completing-the-craig-murray-jigsaw/
And England.
And Wales.
And Ireland.
Everywhere on the planet preferably!
I’m afraid the position Mr Murray finds himself in is not anything to do with a judicial decision; it’s a political decision clothed with a judicial order to create the impression of a judicial hearing. A judicial decision implies a rational, fair process that invokes concepts of fair-play, equality of arms and knowing not only the case against you but the identity of your accusers.
Mr Murray has been charged for an offence that is so bizarre, it is difficult to properly analyse it. Then he is denied a defence by the main aspects of his evidence being held to be inadmissible. Then there are the delays and then the abuse of due legal process or any application of natural justice by his judge deciding whether he can bring an appeal to a higher court. Like the learned judge is going to give leave to appeal the judgement, with all the defects, that she and her cronies made.
No, it’s all about punishing Mr Murray, probably trying to bankrupt him, as if depriving him of his liberty is not punishment enough for a man his age, with not great health and a family that contains an infant. And all for heinous ‘crime’ of reporting injustice, not to the taste of the ruling elite.
What a disgrace this country (the UK) is.
We should shudder with embarrassment and shake with rage at what is being carried out in our name!
Ingwe – it is all about trying to silence him. His journalism is so good and effective that they are frightened of him and want to shut him up.
Note that they’re now leaving Salmond alone – they don’t see him as a threat any more, particularly now that Alba bombed reasonably spectacularly.
That is why Salmond is basically being left alone now, but they still have the disembowelling cutlasses out for Craig Murray.
He is unlikely to get out of prison alive. They’ll think of some way of doing him in and making it look like suicide.
Jimmy Riddle
The Lady Dorrian is playing an intellectual game with Craig. He believes in personal.liberty and she doesn’t. She believes our society has the moral right to bomb and steal from other countries and Craig doesn’t.
She is fixated on male sexual abuse and he is fixated on British colonial abuse. Craig agrees with her about male sexual abuse , but she doesn’t agree with him about colonial abuse.
She thinks that the country she serves has the absolute right to bomb, trash, steal, rape wherever country in the world it likes because We are better than them. She believes in British exceptionalism, but she hates male exceptionalism, the fact that men can get away with rape.
She, and Baraitser before her, feels justified in silencing Craig for his political opinions, on the pretext of her animus about male sexual abuse.
The reason for that is possibly because women take their opinions on politics from.their fathers, while men take their morality from their mothers. Dorrian’ s gripe in life is about male chauvinism, but she considers political abuse unimportant. Craig was brought up by his mum and fully on board with feminism.
It’s pretty embarrassing to see an intelligent women trying to bang the square peg of her gripe against male exceptionalism into the round hole of a man who was brought up solely by his mother and totally agrees with the judge.
It was already embarrassing that she wanted to do the same to Alex Salmond. When she’s finished with Craig, what other lovely man is she going to hammer her square peg of man hate into next?
“He is unlikely to get out of prison alive. They’ll think of some way of doing him in and making it look like suicide.”
I very much doubt it. Craig is not young and in poor health. His death, should it occur, will be made to look like natural causes.
As an American with many Russian friends, I have to thank Sturgeon, Dorrian et al for their service to US-Russian friendship & pride. They are making the Jim Crow justice of the Old South and Stalin’s show trials look good.
This is outrageous! What a travesty of justice!
“Lady” Dorrian’s name should go down in history as another example of a Stalinist show trial “judge”.
Appealing to the highest court of the UK, by a committed Scottish secessionist, seems a bit unlikely to succeed, as well. What about appealing to the European Court of Human Rights, or some place like that?
Antiwar, that is the intention. But they have to go through the “supreme” court first.
The secessionist is taking on apparent secessionists. The UK would quite enjoy the blue on blue nature.
Has nobody suggested any other way to help with Craig’s cause? Is there any way for the small person to get organised with other small persons and compel the justice system to act independently rather than be the mercenary and punishment arm of very corrupt politicians? It is quite shocking that false accusers and those who employ them have a get-out-of-jail-free card while innocent people in this country keep getting locked up. How much more of this will we take? The Guardian published some crappy article the other day about all the revolutions that Gen Z are supposed to be mounting? What was that nonsense about? Is The Guardian so dumb not to realise that all those kids want to do is play video games on their phones?
I think that when the “complainants” got their act together aided and abetted by the Lord Advocate and his cronies while riding on the crest of the “me too” wave, they though they would have no difficulties in persuading a media soaked jury to say “guilty”. They were thwarted by the tenacity of Alex Salmond himself and people like Craig Murray who were brave enough to needle deep into the fabric of their flimsy allegations. Crown was shocked when the pushover they though proved not to be the case because the truth was coming out, which fortunately the jury recognised. Since then those who resisted the pushover including the members of that jury have been made the scapegoats to be taught a lesson to deter the others. If justice is not done in this case and seen to be done it never will.
Making a false allegation is a form of violence, never mind libel. Whoever is behind these allegations should be incarcerated for the very crime that was alleged. I say that from the perspective of someone who doesn’t actually agree with incarceration. But I cannot see any other way of deterring violent crimes of this nature.
Thank you Kirsten.
I have posted many times that the UK is a totalitarian fascist police state under the jackboot of the CIA/NSA through their stooges in MI5/MI6, as a consequence the entire edifice of state is corrupted by ideological fascism, which permeates the media, politics, judiciary and even the CofE. The belief that the interests of the US and the UK are the same is a total lie to cover up the fascist tyranny of the US that the UK is subjected to.
Craig is not being jailed for jigsaw identification, he is being jailed for repeatedly pissing on the US narrative, which is adopted wholesale by the UK establishment.
Restrictions on Reporting & Social Media for Monday’s session:
https://twitter.com/FMSNewMedia/status/1401208310339149829
Are there any links between the Scottish judiciary and that of North Korea? This may explain Mr. Murray’s jail sentence for reporting on an issue that a court seeking to ensure that a right is done would never designate even as an offence.
This is so dispiriting.
Feel like I have been magically transported into a new Grant Morrison Netflix series called “Big Mammie” (subtitled ” or how to run a prosecution service without using police investigations”).
Alex Salmond trial from an unlawful and incompetent investigation from within the Scottish Government. Instigated directly by COPFS. Craig Murray trial via court charge of “contempt of court”, no police involved, not much defence allowed.
I am going right off Grant Morrison dystopias.
We will do what we can, Craig.
Respect.
I can’t understand why there are no demonstrations outside the court or wherever if this is banned…. Craig Murray’s case get very little coverage in the British press and absolutely none abroad, even in France despite it’s historical ties with Scotland. For Julian Assange there is a little more cover, very little, but some – groups of “gilets jaunes” actually hired coaches to go to demonstrate outside the court in London when that sad show trial was running, but they don’t seem to even know about this equally hideous case. Is it really that court action is seen as the only recourse? If so that is a mistake in my opinion, the legal system of a society will generally support the interests of the dominant class, or clique.
I have just read the reporting rules published by the court, absolutely astonishing and with the clear threat of contempt of court proceedings for anyone who doesn’t toe the line. I realise that I am speaking from an armchair (quite true) and doing nothing either but I am not Scottish, nor a Scottish Nationalist and don’t even live in Britain but you people seem to be headed in a very dangerous direction if you don’t actually get out on the streets and so on pretty quickly – what if Scotland becomes independent and maintains the same clique, North Korea here we come.
Tell me to sod off if you like, I doubtless deserve it, but if a movement doesn’t even defend its militants then it’s doomed.
But do we know enough about North Korea to use it as a benchmark for what the UK is becoming? Doubtful? How do we know for sure that the UK hasn’t always been much worse, with its veneer of free speech? I don’t really think that we know enough.
Otherwise, I agree with everything you say, Bruce.
Interesting to see that artists are starting to speak out and claim censorship over trying to draw attention to the Assange case. It seems there are still a lot of people in powerful places that consider themselves educated at the same time that they blindly follow (because it is convenient, and support’s their ideological agenda, be it fascist or feminist) the media line that Assange is an abusive womaniser.
Bruce, our key problem in Scotland, I think, is that we trust our systems of government. We trust the label on the tin and the officers who are appointed to administer the systems.
Our judicial system has always been revered because of its touted independence. Blair started the attack in that… And Craig’s case will complete the circle of juvenilising the Scottish law courts, when we have to appeal to the UK Supreme Court to have the Scottish judgement judged by grown ups in the law.
But I think there is also an international dimension too. Europe and the wider world has comfy stereotypes of Scotland. Europe was distinctly silent in 2014 on Scottish independence not being a threat to Scotland continuing as a European partner. Our newspapers, even the SNP1&2 National (head office London, England) are not Scottish newspapers. I genuinely believe the civil servants, cabinet ministers, politicians, spads and law officers who have bent the rules in order for their will to prevail have knowingly leaned heavily on Scotland being a colony that only has kid-on rules, norms, or Sewell conventions and these can be bypassed willy nilly when the need arises.
We are in trouble. The loss of a trustworthy judiciary is the biggest societal loss I have witnessed in my life.
Big support for my latest post about how it’s simply not possible for just one journalist on one publication to commit jigsaw identification. But total silence in the Scottish press, of course. Perhaps because they know some of their hacks are more guilty of committing this vague crime than Craig is.
https://jaggy.blog/2021/06/05/completing-the-craig-murray-jigsaw/
If Lady D actually knows the names of any of the alphabet persons…then surely that would disquailfy from hearing any
of these cases….BTW….what happened to Craig as witness for the Spanish Court?
We must all contact Amnesty International