Donald John Morrison was the last man to speak to Willie McRae, unless his murderer talked. He invited me warmly into his neat Benbecula home, where I was visiting with my friend, his cousin Donnie.
Donald took my coat from me and hung it neatly in a cupboard. He then sat us in the front room, while he went to make us tea. On the wood and glass coffee table was a copy of Gareth Wardell’s Essays, thumbed and marked.
Donald John returned with the tea and two slices of pizza, warm and crisp, with sweet fresh cherry tomatoes on top, their skins split from the oven.
Donald John’s movements were fluid. He is remarkably spritely for a man in his late seventies, his back only slightly bowed, his eyes clear behind his spectacles, his hands deft and assured.
There is a calm island lisp to his voice, but he speaks compellingly, assuredly, with the policeman’s eye for relevance and detail. He was a central Glasgow beat policeman for decades, in times when Glasgow was a tough and dangerous city – and when there were beat policemen.
He comes across as more than friendly, positively kindly. But then at key points in his narrative, his eyes suddenly flash and you see the inner steel that he needed in the Glasgow polis.
It happens when he is angry, and there are parts of this story that make him angry indeed.
He knew Willie McRae professionally quite well, in the way that a policeman knows a lawyer. They would meet in court, and sometimes he would need to serve papers on McRae’s office on Bath Street.
Everybody knew the office, it was on the first floor, the biggest law practice in the city, its door protected by a steel shutter on a roller.
In early 1985 he saw Willie McRae more often than usual, because he had to attend on four separate occasions to burglaries of the law office. On every occasion cabinets had been forced and papers had been taken, but no money.
On the same floor of the Bath Street building was an office belonging to a Director of Celtic. That too was burgled, and when he attended that one, the Director told him he believed the break-in was looking for papers belonging to Willie McRae.
Then one day in March 1985, his sergeant came out to the beat and told Donald John and his partner that, whatever occurred, they were to stay away from the McRae offices that evening because a Special Branch and MI5 operation was in process.
That night Donald John was pulling a “doubler” – a twelve hour shift. He found that McRae had been taken into custody and a police cell, for Driving Under the Influence (which to be fair could have been done to Willie McRae almost any day of the week).
Donald John had seen this before. In those days, the personal effects of a prisoner in the police cells were put into a large brown envelope and sealed. Special Branch would take away the envelope from the custody sergeant, open it, remove the prisoner’s house keys, and before the custody court the next morning at 9.30am they would return them and reseal.
It appears that evening the plan did not work, as Willie McRae did not have the roller shutter keys on him – they were in fact kept by the cleaner who came in and opened up at 7.30am every morning.
Donald John grinned that he could have told Special Branch that, if they had asked him.
Then on 7 April Donald John was walking his beat, when he spotted two men keeping surveillance on Agnews store. He immediately tagged them as policemen.
One, a tall thin man of around forty years with prematurely white hair, was pacing up and down outside the barbershop, as though waiting for someone. The second, a shorter and stouter man with curly black hair, was pretending to look into a plate glass shop window. Occasionally they would glance to check on each other.
Donald John was walking towards Agnews store, somewhat on guard, when Willie McRae emerged from the store and walked towards him. In each hand McRae held a bottle of Islay Mist whisky.
Donald joked that he would have to breathylise him. Willie replied that in a few hours he would be enjoying the whisky by a warm fire in Kintail.
They walked together to McRae’s car. Willie put one bottle on the roof while he opened the door, and Donald John caught it for him as it started to roll from the roof.
Willie placed both bottles on the front seat next to a bulging briefcase. Donald moved them onto the floor of the car, suggesting they would be safer as they could fall off the seat.
Willie looked at Donald John and patted the bulging briefcase, which had papers sticking out.
“I have got them this time, Donald”, he said. Then he repeated: “I have got them this time”.
They were probably the last words Willie McRae spoke.
As McRae closed the car door, Donald John Morrison looked up and saw one of the police surveillance team signal to the other with outturned hands, as though to indicate he had no idea what was happening, why a uniformed policeman was speaking to McRae.
I interrupted Donald John (the only time I needed to in the whole discourse) to ask him how McRae had seemed. He said he was neatly dressed and shaven, in a check shirt with a tie and a tweed jacket. He seemed on good form, “in fine fettle”. He had a sparkle in his eye and seemed to be relishing the idea of that drink by the fire in Kintail.
Donald John said apparently there had been a blaze at McRae’s home earlier that day but he gave no indication of it. There was absolutely nothing in his demeanour to indicate he was troubled: quite the opposite.
When he heard of the alleged suicide, Donald John was astonished and did not believe it. He had spoken to Roddy Mackay of Agnew’s Store, who had sold Willie the whisky, and he had also found McRae just as cheerful.
Morrison gave a full statement to the investigation, including everything detailed here. He recommended they also take a statement from Roddy Mackay.
A former beat collague of Donald John Morrison had joined Special Branch. He subsequently told Donald John that the whole investigation into McRae’s death was a cover-up and a tissue of lies by the police.
Donald John also found that Roddy Mackay had never been interviewed.
Over a decade later, once the Freedom of Information Act had passed, Donald John FOIA requested a copy of the report into the death of Willie McRae.
Donald John Morrison was astonished to find that his entire statement had been falsified and replaced with a fake statement onto which his signature had been photocpied.
In his “official” statement in the report there was nothing about surveillance, nothing about MI5 or Special Branch, and nothing about the whisky or the briefcase.
The official version of the death of Willie McRae is that there was no whisky or briefcase in the car, and that he shot himself in the back of the head whilst driving along, the gun flying out of the car window.
That remains the official story to this day.
Donald John was absolutely furious about the forgery of his statement. As this was obviously a serious crime in itself, he went to the procurator fiscal in Elgin to try to get a prosecution commenced against the Special Branch officers involved.
Eventually he was told that the Crown Office had ruled a prosecution would not be “procedurally correct”.
Donald John Morrison believes that, from the death of Willie McRae on, he was a marked man in the police because of what he knew.
Despite an exemplary record he was never offered promotion, though he says he did not want it. He was involved on three occasions in tackling and physically subduing armed robbers, but got not so much as a commendation. Frequently arrests he made were attributed to others.
Morrison says that it was made absolutely plain to officers, by the senior command, that they were expected to join the Orange Lodge, which he did. There were only five Catholic officers – who he named – in his division. The McRae affair also caused him problems in the Orange Lodge, but that is a story, he suggested, for another day.
Morrison is a compelling witness. His testimony is detailed and precise. He ventures nothing beyond what he himself saw and did. He had not a word to say on why McRae was killed, because he does not know.
But he does know there was a bulging briefcase that McRae patted when he said “I have got them this time”. He knows that there were two bottles of Islay Mist. He knows that these things officially “disappeared”. He knows his statement was forged, and that it was done by Special Branch. He knows McRae was under British state surveillance.
I know that I met an honest and brave man. As we left, he stood there, eyes twinkling, and insisted that next time we came to the island we were staying with him, “with your wife and bairns too”.
It was a pleasure to be hosted by the remarkable Donald John Morrison. Just an honest beat cop, standing up against the murderers of the British state.
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PC Morrison was also asked to obtain keys to Willie McCrae’s office. He refused to commit a crime -even one that an inspector said would enhance his career.
Some more incidental detail here:
https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/19715693.neil-mackays-big-read-snp-activist-willie-mcraes-death-state-sanctioned-murder-says-ex-police-officer/
Are theses email’s actually getting published ?
I suspect that question is for Craig rather than me.
Powerful writing Craig.
Willie McCrae was murdered. And they would do it again.
Anecdotal comment is that Willie McCrae had evidence of a paedophile ring at the heart of the Thatcher government.
Not unknown paedophile rings can be helpful in the art of kompromat, the art of persuasion. It is the stock and trade of the security services. Made public of course it is devastating.
McCrae of course is not the only nationalist lawyer in recent times to have been killed by agents of the British state.
Pat Finnucane and Rosemary Nelson, two Northern Ireland civil rights Republican leaning lawyers met their fate at the hands of state gunmen.
Anyone who thinks the UK is a democracy needs think again. But Craig Murray, Julian Assange, Alex Salmond and many others know that. The deep state operatives run just that, deep.
Interesting this recount of a discussion with ex policeman Donald John Morrison as it should serve as a warning to what the UK state actually is.
It’s unknown if it was the pedomring or the nuclear dumping they took him out for, although Willie worked under Mountbatten and it’s thought he knew of the Lords tendencies for young boys, Hilda Murrell was assassinated previously by the British state in a fake robbery, she was also against nuclear dumping down south
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilda_Murrell
Hello Willie! It is time that the police – whom the majority of the Scottish public look up to – put their cards on the table, and once and for all tell the truth about clever lawyer Willie McRae. There are retired policemen probably still walking about who should be in Jail, yet are protected by the likes of former Special Branch policeman John Weir, who wrote a lot of drivel and lies in his unofficial report in which he was paid for trying to attack my honesty and character due to my knowledge of police involvement with McRae for a decade before his death.
To say that the police are corrupt is an understatement. The police cover-up in McRae’s death is absolutely shocking and deplorable. Time for Public Inquiry.
Very edge of darkness.
Perhaps too much plutonium being manufactured or not being accounted for and stored? Ending up in Israel?
“What are you doing here, Darius? you should be in the Third World.”
“This IS the Third World”
Just heard back from the local spy balloon HQ.
When Israel kidnapped Eichmann in 1960 they got a whole lot of intel that they didn’t reveal about other escaped Nazis and methods used. Information that Israel used to discretely “persuade” the UK government that it might be advantageous if Israel obtained a nuclear arsenal.
Hence the plutonium in the Scottish site was deliberately stored insecurely and allowed to leak into the sea in order to cover up the fact that a considerable portion was being shipped off to the Middle East. “General, why don’t the numbers add up?” “Well, all that plutonium leaked into the sea of course….”
The year after McRae died, 1986, Mordechai Vanunu made his revelations about Dimona. Doubtless, Israel had acquired some domestic capacity, but the speed and scale of Israel’s arsenal was not down to Dimona alone. Rather, Dimona was revealed in 1986 in order to divert attention away from Britain’s role.
I am not saying Vanunu was not sincere, but whenever you see something extremely theatrical – such as this
https://electronicintifada.net/sites/default/files/styles/original_800w/public/2004-09/vanunuhand483.jpg
you should probably suspect attention is being deliberately redirected.
As Neil Patrick Harris puts it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUHnzeyH51M
BTW, if you want to know why Josslyn Hay was killed, the spy balloon says you need only ask.
Very interesting
I can’t help wondering if David Cameron’s trip to SA in 1989 with Dr David Kelly and Kenneth Warren (where they allegedly arranged for three nuclear warheads to be shipped to Israel) was actually a cloak of plausible deniability to conceal this secret plutonium pipeline?
Dr Kelly’s “suicide” is as suspicious as Mr McRae’s.
Second hand I know, but a hitchhiker on Skye once told me that he knew a visitor to MacRae’s house, who, after the incident, said that he thought that the floorboards had been lifted.
I have heard this from neighbours of Willies in Dornie
I called several times to visit MSP John Farquhar Munro in Dornie and told him and his wife about my concerns about McRae ! He told me that local people who knew him never believed that Lawyer McRae took his own life.
A dreadful and frightening story. Thank you Donald John (and Craig) for your integrity and bravery.
«A dreadful and frightening story.»
I recently read this story which is also interesting:
https://discussion.theguardian.com/comment-permalink/128589920
“Back during the MPs’ expenses scandal there was a Telegraph journalist who took the lead role in using the Freedom of Information Act to get Parliament to reveal what MPs’ had been spending their expense money on. He is now doing 10 years after the police turned up at his house one day and “found” stuff on his computer. This was pretty much covered up at the time: it was not reported in any national newspaper and only appeared in the local press in Kent, where he lived.”
The wider political context is not favourable to “deviants”: as long as the major parties of government ensure that property prices keep doubling every 7-10 years the great english (and some scottish) middle class only care to enjoy their booming living standards, and their principle is “make no waves”, and they will endorse or let pass anything else, with eager gratitude to their benefactors in the major parties.
Sometimes I regret ever joining the lying and corrupt police service, who have been involved in a major cover-up of the truth about how clever lawyer Willie McRae was under surveillance by Special Branch and MI5 for a decade before his death. Had former Lord Advocate Elish Angiolinni been told the truth I do not believe that she would have said that McRae was not under surveillance before his suspicious demise. In the mid 1970s while on a weekend 7pm to 7am shift I very well recall a police sergeant telling my police colleague and I not to go near the premises occupied by Levi, Murray, McRae & Spens in Bath Street that night because the premises was being under surveillance by SB & a Government Branch (the MI5). All were marked divisional patrol cars and traffic cars were not permitted near McRae’s office premises that night. The Chief Constable would no doubt have been aware of what was happening. When I went back on day shift thereafter I checked McRae’s office door (1 up right) and saw that the door had not been forced to gain entry. Within a couple of weeks I was asked by police inspector and sergeant to get a hold of the Chubb keys to McRae’s office and to get a copy for them; they added that this would enhance my police career. They did not require a copy of the ‘Yale key’. I did not make much of an effort to get a copy.
Hi Craig
I’m getting paid today and will make a donation.
I’m not going to use PayPal due to their continued demonisation and racism towards the Palestinian people.
Sorry.
You are not alone: Keep up the good work. (I’ll also contribute when I can in the future, but as I work contracts I’m unsure when that will be.)
Best
John Burns.
… that being only one of many, many reasons not to use Paypal. Google for ‘paypal sucks’ sometime.
Paypal is presumably used by people outside Europe whose banks can’t do a direct transfer to an account identified by an IBAN, but there are alternatives like moneycorp.com (google for others, there are several).
And still there’s Scots who live in Scotland (not beneficial House Jocks) but ordinary people who actually believe the union is a good thing, and that Whitehall would never act against Scottish interests. Talk about Stockholm Syndrome.
McRae was murdered. “I have got them this time” – he had something big on unionist politicians, something big that they had done, and he had to be silenced and it was made (shoddily) to look like a suicide.
This also highlights your excellent point in a previous thread that when we take our independence, and there’s no doubt that we will need to take it, that Police Scotland officers will need to swear an oath to Scotland, and not to the English Crown.
That would need to be “Scotland” as in the Scottish people, not “Scotland” as in the State of Scotland. History shows that “the state” becomes “the government of the day” in fairly short order.
I’m no unionist, but it would be a mistake to think this secret squirrel stuff is uniquely British state. Do the words “Alex Salmond trial” ring any bells here?
The Scottish police are still lying about the death of clever lawyer Willie McRae 36yrs after his death. Former Chief Constable Iain Livingstone’s police Spokesperson is lying when he reports in the media that there was no corroborative evidence that McRae was in West Nile Street on Friday, 5 April 1985. I was on police uniform patrol and saw McRae exiting Agnew’s Store, West Nile Street, that day. I also saw McRae under Surveillance by two people who I have no doubt were police officers. I also saw these two males going into two vehicles that went through red traffic signals forcing pedestrians to jump out of the way. The driver of the second vehicle extended his right arm out the window to apologise. Common practice by police in a hurry!
Please read my previous info. Mr McRae made a complaint around 1978‒1980 to OIC at Stewart Street police office about a blue Triumph car circling his office premises every day about finishing time. Supt. Robert Hamilton, who had been stationed there for some time, asked me and another beat Constable to attend and obtain a statement from him in my notebook. Mr Hamilton ordered me to return immediately to see him with McRae’s details etc. I handed Mr Hamilton my notebook and both of us went to see the female civilian controller who made a PNC (Police National Computer) check. The result was: No Trace.
Mr Hamilton then asked me to return immediately to see McRae and ask him if he had given me the correct registration number. When I put this to Mr McRae he paused and looked up at the ceiling and said “of course Special Branch and MI5 do not have to register their vehicles with Swansea.” To hear Mr McRae say this remark it was obvious to me that he knew that he was under surveillance by SB and MI5 (who, I am told by another SB officer, often worked together).
I then returned to see Mr Hamilton at Stewart St office and told him what Mr McRae had said. At this point the Supt’s office phone rang and Mr Hamilton told me that McRae had also written to the Chief Constable at Pitt Street about a vehicle circling his office. I believe that Chief Constable and senior officers failed to protect McRae.
The Justice for Willie McRae by Mark McNicol and John Walker contains not only evasiveness of the truth but a pack of lies. John Weir writes that there was not a Supt. Hamilton at Stewart Street. He also wrote that I made a vehicle check on a vehicle that was circling McRae’s office or either of the vehicles that followed McRae on Friday 5th. April.1985. He also writes that I gave a hitchhiker a lift at Fort William. This was not me, but Graham Richardson, who was attached to the police pipe band. He again writes that I was waving at shopkeepers in Hope Street, yet there are no shops in Hope Street!
I gave Mark McNicol £700 in cash out of my own pocket for him to employ Two QCs or two solicitors to carry out an honest investigation, and not two former SB policemen whose main objective was to deliberately attack my honesty. Both never made any attempt to identify the two who were taking observations on McRae and followed him in two cars that went through red traffic signals to ‘tail’ him.
John Weir was critical of uniform police who returned the McRae files for not telling McRae that the files were taken to the police office for fingerprinting and not warning McRae, who was angry about police powers. Mr Hamilton told McRae the lie that his files were taken to police station for safety and not for them to be photocopied.
Having read the two John’s report, I demanded that Mark McNicol returned my money. This was refused. An Aberdeen notary and lawyer who was a member of the panel wrote me a letter stating that John Weir was persistently attacking my honesty and credibility, and that this had greatly devalued the whole investigation. Another two panel members were dismissed from the panel for asking John Weir questions he could not answer. They also told me that they had great difficulty believing anything he said.
John Weir is again evasive of the truth when he states that I gave names of police officers who would corroborate my statement. Not only that: he wrote that I might have been attempting to pervert the course of justice by stopping traffic to allow Willie McRae to do a U turn to head north. Mr McNicol has refused to say how much cash was collected in the crowdfunder or how much was paid to the retired John Weir & John Walker despite repeated requests from myself and panel member/author Ron Culley.
Time for the truth and an inquiry into McRae’s death, which I believe was murder.
Dr Callum Carr did a great blog on Willie Macrae, a true Scottish Patriot. I would love to know who it was he was said to have told Donald about what he had on who, was it a Westminster pedo ring or was it the proposed nuclear dumping he was fighting; both credible, but another anti nuclear dumping activist was murdered shortly before Willie was assassinated
http://williemcraeinvestigations.blogspot.com/
Also Ron Culley did a good book on Willie called Firebrand, and also a historical fiction book called Who Shot Willie McRae, I first came across Willie in the book Britains Secret War, tartan terrorism and the Angle-American State by Andrew Murray Scott and Jim MacLeay but think some of their observations might be off
Thanks Willie B for mentioning Ron Culley’s book ‘Firebrand’; it’s getting great reviews, with an especially good one from GrouseBeater in his recent book ‘Essays 3’. I’ll buy ‘Firebrand’ to read next time I have to catch the train South to visit my work-exiled grandchildren in London. I thoroughly enjoyed Ron’s earlier novel ‘Who Shot Willie McRae’, so am looking forward to gaining further insights from ‘Firebrand’.
No problems Ron, it is a good read, I am pretty sure I gave it a good review on Amazon as well. Dr Calum Carr’s blog on Willie is well worth a read; it’s more on the investigation than anything else with photos etc to describe things, but unfortunately it even leaves questions unanswered as everythng he used was from police records and interivews of the first folks on the scene of the accident. But I still think the crash scene was a mile out. My father was passed it that morning while investigators were doing their cover up on his way down to Pittemweem where he was fishing from at the time and he left his boat at the swingbridge at the Great Glen Waterpark moorings in the canal when he would come home for a long weekend. But when he saw the cairn, he was always sure the crash was a mile closer to Invergarry, where the forestry is now.
But the difference being it would have fallen under another Northern Constabulary division’s juristiction, we will never know the truth unless WikiLeaks can get access to the files. But that is too much to hope for, just as by the time the truth about Dunblane comes out, we will all likely be dead, and how they used a school shooting to disarm the public. They in my opinion are trying the same tactics to disarm the US citizens. Why do we never hear of a mass school shooting in an inner city ghetto school, only white middle class ones. One quote goes that an unarmed person is a subject, and armed person is a citizen, and every dictatorship disarms the public as they take control, because an armed uprising is then out of the window.
Thanks from me too, Wullie B. To my shame I didn’t know about Ron Culley. Book ordered. Obviously thanks to Craig and fellow investigators also.
McRae used to lecture to students in University .one of the former students who knew McRae used to drive for McRae after he had been suspended and used to drive McRae to his holiday home in Kintail. McRae told him that paedophile ring was operating among the judiciary ,police and those in authority and could bring the Government down. I thought it rather odd that just a few days after McRae,s demise MP Nicolas Fairburn came up from London and visited the Lord Advocate at Edinburgh. The police service are lying when senior officers are repeatedly saying that a Comprehensive Report was submitted after!cRae,s death. No word about McRae,s filing cabinets being forced open on four occasions and photocopied at Stewart Street police station or him writing to former Chief Const. about him being under surveillance daily as he left his office after work.
I blush to remember when, fifty years ago, words like procurator fiscal and Crown Office would engender feelings of probity and integrity. We’ve sunk a long way.
Re: ‘The official version of the death of Willie McRae is that there was no whisky or briefcase in the car, and that he shot himself in the back of the head whilst driving along, the gun flying out of the car window.’
If I recall correctly, the police stated that there was a partially consumed bottle of Grouse in the car, and the official version is that he shot himself after it had come to a standstill in the burn at an angle of around 30 degrees to the horizontal, which is why the gun fell out of the door when it was opened by the people who found him. (An explanation for the gun being found 60 feet away from where the car was is that the car was supposedly removed, and then replaced in a slightly different spot on the Sunday after the bullet was discovered in his neck.)
For anyone with an interest in the case and a lot of time on their hands, this link may provide interesting reading. It’s a report of the findings of John Weir, a private detective who was hired by the Justice for Willie McRae campaign to look into the case. As part of this, he interviewed Donald Morrison.
http://markmacnicol.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Justice-For-Willie-Full-Witness-Report-2017-update.pdf
It’s been a while since I read it but, as I recall, in the report Morrison is claimed by some of his former colleagues* to have been “a real character” and “full of chaff”. In any event, I’m not in the habit of taking one old man’s story over a few drams as proof that someone was murdered without further evidence being provided. For what it’s worth, personally, I’m 99% convinced it was suicide.
* Obviously, not having come down with the last shower of shite, I’m aware that not every officer in the Strathclyde force was as honest as the day is long. Tam McGraw wasn’t known as ‘The Licensee’ because he ran a pub or an off-licence.
A compelling explanation for why the gun was 60 feet away! Thanks for clearing that up ?
Yes not suspicious in the least!
Thanks for your reply Reza. You may find this article by Paul Delamore* in the Scotsman enlightening:
https://www.scotsman.com/news/truth-about-activist-willie-mcraes-tragic-death-1508335
You’re very welcome.
* At the time Delamore was a student at Strathclyde Uni with a real interest in the case, not a journeyman hack with bills to pay who would write anything for money.
A student with a real interest in the case eh? LOL
Thanks for your reply, jm. Delamore was an investigative journalism student who I doubt was particularly interested in boozing and pulling birds.
Thats yet another vague and speculative statement.
Thanks again for your reply, jm. As opposed to: ‘A student with a real interest in the case eh? LOL’ presumably?
I’ve spent quite a bit of my silly little life working in universities and I know that when project students get the bit between their teeth, they’re hard to rein in. They’re phoning you up at 8am asking if you’ll be here soon to let them in the lab. Some of them even want to work weekends and keep working in the evenings. Sometimes when it was gone 7pm and I was keen to leave, I used to ask one or two of them: “Shouldn’t you be taking drugs and having sex?” – and on one occasion got told that all that stuff gets boring after a bit. Good point, well made. He got a first obviously.
As regards Paul Delamore: if you know, you know. If you haven’t already, why not read the article?
I don’t doubt that you prefer to believe in the official account of the circumstances of Willie McRaes death, because this confirms your comfortable belief in the good faith of your fellow state actors. The two sources you cite date from 2016 and 2017. There is an update to williemcraeinvestigations.blogspot.com/ dated January 2022 that casts further doubt on the reliability of the official version, perhaps you have something to say about that too?
Thanks for your reply, pete, and for the link to the blogpost. I base my views on these things on evidence. I will try to read the blogpost when I get time and get back to you about it.
” I’m 99% convinced it was suicide.”
Then why was Donald Morrison’s statement falsified, or do you believe that this was more of his “chaff”? I suppose if you want to believe that everything the Establishment says is 99% true, then you just have to put up with having to believe that everything everyone else says is 99% lies.
Thanks for your reply Bayard. Has anyone seen a copy of the supposedly faked statement obtained by the FOIA request?
I don’t necessarily believe 99% of what the Establishment says. Most people do largely go along with Establishment view of things though – granted maybe not people you hang around with.
“Most people do largely go along with Establishment view of things though “
Do you have any evidence for this sweeping statement?
Thanks for reply, jm. Yes, unlike me, in the UK as a whole, they generally vote Tory, Labour or Lib Dem. Less so in Scotland, where many of them vote SNP, having been told not to vote for Alba.
Thats hardly evidence of your sweeping statement though is it? Many people vote on single issues.Many vote Labour or LibDem as they think this opposes the Establishment,rightly or wrongly.
Thanks for your reply, jm. Yes it is evidence. If the bulk of people in the UK wanted to change the system, they could, for example, vote communist or for the Libertarian Party in general elections – and if candidates for those parties weren’t standing in their constituencies, some of them could stand themselves at a cost of only £500, which they’d get back. Some Labour voters are anti-establishment, particularly some of the ones that made up the 40% of the electorate that Corbyn got in 2017, but the bulk of that vote would vote Labour whoever was leader.
And look at the massively concerted effort that was put into destroying Corbyn.I believe it was Pompeo that mentioned he’d be made to run the gauntlet if he got close to winnning.Most knew what he meant and it sure aint a pleasant experience.Sounded like an absolute threat.Democracy eh?
Thanks for your reply, jm. I don’t doubt that there was a concerted campaign to undermine Corbyn, in particular with regard to his Brexit policy (see Oliver Eagleton’s Starmer biography) and the Auntie Semmytism stuff – which, after the 2017 general election result, would have happened whatever Pompeo wanted. None of this means that Willie McRae was killed by the British State though. Enjoy the weekend.
Youve deflected from the point which was about your sweeping statement regarding the majority going along with the Establishment.You still haven’t shown anything credible bar speculation and deflection.
Lapsed Agnostic writes, “I don’t necessarily believe 99% of what the Establishment says. Most people do largely go along with the Establishment view of things though — granted maybe not people you hang around with.”
Lately it has dawned on me that the primary effect of propaganda is not to convince its audience that its content is true.
Instead, progaganda aims primarily to convince the audience that selected propositions and sentiments are popular.
More briefly, propagandists struggle over the audience’s perception of how popular certain propositions are.
Thanks for your reply, jm. I have already provided evidence in UK voting patterns for my statement that people largely go along with the Establishment. On the whole, British people don’t vote on single issues; they vote along tribal lines – Tory & Labour.
Thanks for your reply BTL. Yes, I think there’s quite a lot of truth in what you say.
“Has anyone seen a copy of the supposedly faked statement obtained by the FOIA request?”
You are presupposing that the Establishment version of events is the truth unless proved otherwise. If you “don’t necessarily believe 99% of what the Establishment says”, why would you presuppose that? One one side you have the word of a police officer that you don’t know whether he is truthful or not and on the other side you have the Establishment which you know very often lies. Why would you trust the latter over the former?
Thanks for your reply Bayard. I’m not presupposing that the official version of events has to be the truth – I just reason that it’s far more likely that McRae killed himself than was murdered, on the basis of the available evidence. If further evidence becomes available, it’s possible that I may change my mind. For some evidence as to the credibility of ex-PC Donald Morrison, see the statements by some of his former colleagues on pages 97 – 102 of the report by John Weir that I linked to in my original comment.
“I just reason that it’s far more likely that McRae killed himself than was murdered, on the basis of the available evidence.”
What available evidence is there that he killed himself that doesn’t depend on the Establishment telling the truth?
” If further evidence becomes available, it’s possible that I may change my mind.”
There is no evidence for either version of “the truth”. All the “available evidence” is only as credible as the people producing it. You have already said that are sceptical of 99% of what the Establishment says, but then you say you think them more credible than Craig.
Then you have to consider the probability of the “evidence” itself. Is it likely that the Establishment would murder someone who was going to make public something they didn’t want known? Possibly, you think that they don’t do that sort of thing, in which case you are just naive. Alternatively you think that they do do this sort of thing, but not this time, in which case, you have to consider things like the car being taken away and brought back again, but to a different spot, a suicide shooting himself in the back of the head and the bullet ending up in his neck, to the gun being found sixty feet away. Willie McRae had no previous history of depression or attempted suicide, whereas the record of the Establishment eliminating inconvenient people goes back centuries. Of course the whole “Establishment plot” story could be made up, but then so could the “suicide” story. Even without the testimony of Donald Morrison it seems more likely that the Establishment silenced a man who was a thorn in their side than that he killed himself. When it boils down to it, there is really only one reason to believe that it was suicide and that is so as not to have to believe that the people who rule over us are capable of murder for their own ends.
Thanks for your reply Bayard.
‘What available evidence is there that he killed himself that doesn’t depend on the Establishment telling the truth?’
Let’s assume that all police officers and former police officers, except Morrison, are lying about everything to do with the case, either at the behest of the Establishment or to cover up their own incompetence or both. What do we still know? Well, unless the staff at Aberdeen Infirmary and McRae’s brother, Fergus, were lying as well, we know that McRae was shot with a low-power round, probably a .22 short. It’s very unlikely that a professional hitman attempting to make look like suicide would use such a round, as he couldn’t be sure of a kill with just one shot, especially with a shot in the neck. That’s evidence that he wasn’t killed by a pro.
I think that the official version of events might be more credible than our host on this matter because it doesn’t take the word of a single old man that there was serious malpractice within the Strathclyde’s uniform force in the 1980’s as absolute truth without any evidence apparently being provided to support it. Our host has also falsely claimed that the official version maintains that no whisky and no briefcase were found in the car. This is untrue; the police report states that a half-bottle of one-sixth full* Grouse and a full bottle of Glenmorangie were found, along with a brown briefcase containing business documents (see pages 159-160 of John Weir’s report linked to in my original comment).
That the gun was found sixty feet away from the car is to some extent contentious, and the officer who supposedly said it to a Herald journalist in 1995 now claims that the remark was taken ‘out of context’ – whatever that means – and that ‘it’s a lot of rubbish’ (see page 53 of the report).
Re: ‘Willie McRae had no previous history of depression or attempted suicide’
In the report, friends #4 & #5 state that McRae was often depressed and, on at least one occasion, actively suicidal (see pages 120-123), as has his brother.
McRae was definitely a thorn in the side of the nuclear industry, but would they have him killed for it? I doubt it.
* obviously written by an optimist
“Well, unless the staff at Aberdeen Infirmary and McRae’s brother, Fergus, were lying as well, we know that McRae was shot with a low-power round, probably a .22 short. It’s very unlikely that a professional hitman attempting to make look like suicide would use such a round, as he couldn’t be sure of a kill with just one shot, especially with a shot in the neck. That’s evidence that he wasn’t killed by a pro.”
Well of course, if he was killed by a pro, the pro would want it to look like he was killed by a pro. He wouldn’t want it to look like McRae committed suicide, or anything. Yeah, right! Any pro worth his salt should be able to kill someone at point blank range, even with a .22. After all, Willie McRae is supposed to have done it, and he wasn’t a pro as well as having the difficulty of shooting himself from behind. If you want to kill yourself, you want to kill yourself quickly, not give yourself a slow, agonising death, so you either put the muzzle of the gun in your mouth, or put it to your temple, where the bone is thin. You don’t fart around trying to shoot yourself in the back of the head. If you really think a .22 round won’t penetrate the skull at the temple, I invite you to try it. Go on, you know it’s safe.
“Our host has also falsely claimed that the official version maintains that no whisky and no briefcase were found in the car. This is untrue; the police report states that a half-bottle of one-sixth full* Grouse and a full bottle of Glenmorangie were found, along with a brown briefcase containing business documents (see pages 159-160 of John Weir’s report linked to in my original comment).”
Of course, if it’s an official report, it must be the truth and Craig must be lying.
“That the gun was found sixty feet away from the car is to some extent contentious, and the officer who supposedly said it to a Herald journalist in 1995 now claims that the remark was taken ‘out of context’ – whatever that means – and that ‘it’s a lot of rubbish’ (see page 53 of the report). et seq”
It’s Mandy Rice-Davis time again. I don’t accept that the authorities are not capable of both persuading employees of the state to lie for them and falsifying official reports. All of your “evidence” is exactly what one would expect from a cover up, trying to get rid of inconsistencies by insisting that they never happened.
You still haven’t explained why the police didn’t suspect foul play after finding a car with a man dead of a gunshot wound until after the car had been removed from the scene of the crime and when they did, they then put it back, but in a different place. I can just imagine the conversation when the death was reported. “A car with a man shot dead in it, you say? Must be suicide, we get them all the time round here. People are always driving their cars off the road and shooting themselves” “He was shot in the back of the neck? No, they do that too. Tricky, I know, but they seem to manage it OK. I’ll just call a recovery firm to take the car away to the scrapyard”.
Thanks for your reply Bayard. Even the best pro might not be able to kill someone if the ammunition they’re using isn’t powerful enough, or they might not want to take that risk if they’ve only got one shot. I’m not going to try shooting myself in the temple with a .22 short round because: a) unlike 9 millies, .22 short pistols are quite difficult to get your hands on without a licence, which I don’t currently have; b) even though it’s odds-on I wouldn’t kill myself, it’s likely I would still do a lot of permanent damage.
Whilst I appreciate the quick response, it might help if you read my above comment slowly. I didn’t state that the report by Northern Constabulary into the contents of the car was necessarily true and accurate, although I believe it is. What I said was that the original blogpost reporting that the official version states that no whisky or briefcase was found in the car was a false claim.
Let’s say that the gun actually was found about sixty feet from where the car had originally ended up in the burn. Why would a hitman drop it there? Was it an accident, or was he leaving clues to entertain people on blogs like this?
In the official version of events, the police didn’t find McRae, two Australian tourists did – and it was only in (the second) hospital that the gunshot wound was found between 5 – 7pm, when he was being cleaned by the nurse, after the car had been removed. I have already given a reason as to why the car might have been moved back – but as I’ve also mentioned, it’s possible that it wasn’t and that some witnesses are lying or mistaken. They’ll have had very little of either to deal with, but Northern Constabulary probably got more suicides than murders.
I’ll try to reply to your other replies tomorrow as I’ve had enough for one day. Enjoy the evening.
Lapsed Agnostic raises quite fairly the question of who else, if anyone, has “seen a copy of the supposedly faked statement obtained by FOIA request”.
It is a good question, and as far as I can tell nobody here has yet either provided an answer nor credited LA on that score, so allow me: Good point, Lapsed Agnostic.
I want to add that whatever may have happened, I will not believe the man shot himself in the back of the neck. It would be fair to ask whether it was by accident, or on purpose, or something in between. But somebody else did that for him.
“Thanks for your reply Bayard. Even the best pro might not be able to kill someone if the ammunition they’re using isn’t powerful enough, or they might not want to take that risk if they’ve only got one shot. ”
You are just making yourself look stupid here. First we have a professional hitman who doesn’t know how to kill someone with a .22 pistol, a feat supposedly achieved by a drunk with no firearms experience. Secondly we have a man who wants to make a murder look like a suicide, but wouldn’t use a particular type of gun because it makes it look like a suicide. Thirdly we have McRae managing the difficult feat of shooting himself in the back of the head with a gun that isn’t going to kill him easily, having talked to a man in a pub who told him how to do it, but never thinking that he might only paralyse himself or some other unpleasant fate.
“I didn’t state that the report by Northern Constabulary into the contents of the car was necessarily true and accurate, although I believe it is.”
That’s it, isn’t it? You believe and no amount of facts or logic is going to shake that belief, no matter what absurd propositions you have to advance to support it. I give up, it’s like arguing with a Creationist.
The Morrison/Murray story relies on one improbability, that the state would murder someone who was a nuisance to them, the official story relies on so many that you’d need all day just to point them out, just like with the Skripal affair (and we never saw hair nor hide of them again, either).
Thanks for your reply BTL, and for your kind words. If our host (or anyone else) could obtain a copy of Morrison’s statement, it should be possible to get it analysed by an independent forensic document analyst to establish whether Morrison’s signature was cut out with scissors from one document, pasted onto another document, and then photocopied.
I’ve been looking in more detail at the case, and so far the only primary evidence I can find for Willie McRae being shot in the neck is the testimony of nurse Katharine McGonigal, formerly of Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, in interviews given to the Herald and the National in October 2018. The synopsis of the incident by Northern Constabulary (see page 155 of John Weir’s report), and supposedly his postmortem (which I’ve not seen), states that only one bullet wound was observed which was in his right temple. Apparently, McRae is buried in Falkirk, so the only way to resolve this dichotomy might be to dig him up, which I’d say is unlikely to happen anytime soon.
https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-herald-1130/20181029/281878709368803
https://www.thenational.scot/news/17096658.nurse-treated-willie-mcrae-wasnt-suicide-shot/
—————–
Thanks for your reply Bayard. What I said was that a professional hitman would be unlikely to use a .22 short pistol as he couldn’t guarantee a kill with one shot wherever he aimed on the skull – including the temple – even at point blank range. Neither could Willie McRae, but if he was suicidal and possibly drunk, he probably wasn’t in the most logical frame of mind. A hitman in the employ of the security services could always use an unlicensed handgun in a larger calibre though, which would have a greater chance of success, and then leave it at the scene with McRae’s prints on it. The police would then just assume that he must have bought it on the black market like his .22 revolver.
The Morrison/Murray story relies on Morrison being a credible source. There is some evidence that that might not be the case. For your information: I’m about 99% convinced that Sergei Skripal and his daughter were not poisoned by Novichok that they’d come into contact with on his front door handle around three hours earlier, and wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that they were currently at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. I take each case on its merits.
“The Morrison/Murray story relies on Morrison being a credible source. There is some evidence that that might not be the case.”
No it doesn’t, that is just supporting evidence. It relies on the idea that the state might be prepared to kill someone they found inconvenient. In my mind that is less of an improbability than all the improbabilities that surround the official narrative, like the idea that a .22 pistol is not powerful enough to kill someone at point blank range, which is crucial to your defence of the official narrative, but for which you advance no evidence, also that a suicidal drunk would achieve the difficult feat of killing himself by shooting himself in the back of the head, a feat so difficult that even an experienced hitman would be loath to try it and would risk making the apparent suicide look like murder by using a more powerful weapon.
” The synopsis of the incident by Northern Constabulary (see page 155 of John Weir’s report), and supposedly his postmortem (which I’ve not seen), states that only one bullet wound was observed which was in his right temple. ”
So much for the low-powered gun theory or are the Northern Constabulary, uniquely, lying in this case? Perhaps they thought, like me, that a entry wound in the back of the neck made it look a bit too little like suicide. That’s the problem with lying, you have to make sure everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet.
Bayard thanks for your efforts at demystification, much appreciated. I have always been a bit slow and if I am to form a credible image from some complicated set of events, I generally need help.
“…would you trust the latter over the former?”
I would not the trust the latter at all.
“Most people do largely go along with Establishment view of things”
And yet one one third of the population DON’T VOTE AT ALL at general elections.
Since the election of Blair in 1997, more people don’t vote at all than actually vote for the winning party (i.e. the new Government)
Would be interested to hear your prediction for turnout in the next GE?
In the absence of a new political movement, I predict < 50%
The fake "democracy" that we have been living under (universal suffrage is still less than 100 years old btw) is disintegrating like newspaper in the rain
Thanks for your reply Stewart. I think you may mean one-third of the electorate don’t vote in GE’s. Anyway, some people choose not to vote because there are no candidates standing that represent their political views (for example, Peter Hitchens). However, many other people don’t vote simply because they are politically apathetic – they don’t really care which strand of the Establishment runs the country.
My prediction for turnout at the next GE is 63-65%. I think it will be reduced slightly from last time mainly due to the requirement for photo ID, which many people won’t have in time. The UK government haven’t exactly been heavily advertising it, for reasons that are probably obvious. I very much doubt it will be less than 50%; even for the Labour shoo-in in 2001, it was nearly 60%. Turnout at the inconsequential Wakefield by-election last year was 40%, even though many Tories will have not voted due to disgust over Partygate and their former MP Imran Ahmad Khan’s behaviour. I guess we’ll see what happens.
Nothing new to read so what was the point of this article and it’s syrupy tone?
Maybe for those not familiar with the case? Or is it all about you?
It is called “expressed creativity”, do you have a problem with this? If so, what are you doing on the internet?
I think the syrup is in the eye of the beholder not the article above.
Vocab choice in the above piece is an attempt, I think, to present a contrast between “the bright and the clear” and “the dark and the shadowy”. Do you have an opinion?
I gave Det. Sgt Gavin Andrews (on behalf of Inspector Michael Sutherland a 15-page statement in my home in Buckie and signed the said statement. I went to photocopy my statement and he said not to bother, that a police superintendent would come and see me to go over the statement with me just in case there was anything I wished to change, and that I would get my statement then. I included the name and home address of Roderick MacKay, manager of Agnews Store, in the statement.
Several months later, I visited Mr McKay (who was a relative of my wife and a more distant relative of mine) and his wife. They were both surprised that police had not been in touch, as both recalled that they served McRae with two bottles of Islay Mist on Friday, 5th April 1985, and that McRae had told them that he was going to Kintail and that he would be sitting in front of a log fire enjoying a drink that evening.
I was surprised that Gavin Andrews asked for my parents’ names and occupations, names of all other family siblings and their dates of birth. He also asked me all my places of employment since I left school. All this information was in my statement for some odd reason.
However, after returning home I sent a letter by recorded delivery to a northern Superintendent requesting that I got a copy of my statement. He failed to respond to my request. Thereafter, I phoned Inspector Michael Sutherland, and he said that he could not find my statement, and that Mr MacKay (Agnews Store) had not been contacted. Again he sent two Det. Constables to see me. One of them said that they wanted Roderick MacKay’s details. I said that I had already given all his details in my previous statement. Anyway I gave MacKay’s details again and added that he was a distant relative.
A month or so later I sent a recorded letter to Andrene MacLeod OIC, with an FOI for a copy of my statement. After over a months’ time I phoned her again and she said that she could not find it and blamed poor filing but assured me that it would turn up.
Weeks later I phoned again and OIC Andrene MacLeod told me that my statement was still missing but a Special Branch Officer was coming through from Aberdeen a week the following Monday and that he would know where my statement was, as they had been dealing with the case from the start.
After a wait for eight months I contacted Paula Murray (Deputy Editor, later Editor, of Sunday Express), and she highlighted my complaint. Surprise, surprise: the following morning two CID officers from Inverness appeared at Mr MacKay’s home to obtain a statement, which I do not believe was sent to the Lord Advocate Eilish Angiolinni for her consideration.
Thanks – that markmacnicol link is quite an eye-opener! I’m only about halfway though…
What does “full of chaff” mean in this context? I would take it to mean something like “a bullshitter”, or perhaps “a blusterer”, but perhaps Scotsmen put a more specific interpretation on that phrase. Certainly some of Donald Morrison’s emails seem blustery, and even perhaps evasive.
[Police Officer #1] said: “I always found Donald Morrison to be a “Walter Mitty” type of character who would simply make up stories or exaggerate the truth”. Is that consistent with “full of chaff”?
From my reading, it seems that there are witnesses who insist that the Volvo was at McRae and Dick’s garage, and others who were equally adamant that it wasn’t there. At least some of these witnesses seem to have no axe to grind.
Man, that’s a helluva story. I’ve never heard it before.
Thanks for your reply Jimmeh. I took it to mean full of shit. In fact, having reread bits of the report, it appears that I slightly misremembered – the former police sergeant actually used the words ‘loads of chaff’ (see page 94). It wasn’t just Officer #1 that described Morrison as a ‘Walter Mitty character’, Officer #4 did as well, and Officer #5 stated that Morrison was ‘completely unreliable and a fantasist’ and that he ‘wouldn’t believe anything Donald said’ (see pages 99 – 101). The Police Scotland archivist could find no record of PC David Phinn having received a Chief Constable’s commendation as stated by Morrison. You’re right that there is a bit of conflicting testimony in the report about what happened to the car. Enjoy the rest of the weekend.
To quote Mandy Rice Davies, “they would say that wouldn’t they?” It’s hardly surprising that in that in the police force concerned a few police officers could be found who were prepared to make someone who had made a fairly serious allegation against the force to be a liar and a fantasist.
From Donald Morrison’s 2015 affidavit:
‘A short time later another message came over the radio saying that PC David Phinn had attended the premises of William MacRae [sic] and had found “highly confidential files that were so important they could bring the government down.” and requesting that [Police Officer #2] attends.’
(Page 68 of John Weir’s report that I linked to in my original comment)
Sounds legit.
From a 2016 email from Morrison to John Weir:
‘I believe Willie McRae was silenced probably because of what he knew about [a] PAEDOPHILE RING north / south of the border.’ (see page 87)
whereas he had not a word to say to our host on why McRae might have been killed.
From another of his emails to John Weir:
‘I also have a few Chief Constables [sic] commendations, some from other forces which I helped while *off duty*.’ [my emphasis]. (see page 91)
That’s not what he said to our host, is it?
“‘I believe Willie McRae was silenced probably because of what he knew about [a] PAEDOPHILE RING north / south of the border.’ (see page 87)
whereas he had not a word to say to our host on why McRae might have been killed.”
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Morrison might have changed his mind as to why he thought McRae was killed, or decide he no longer wanted to speculate about it.
“‘I also have a few Chief Constables [sic] commendations, some from other forces which I helped while *off duty*.’ [my emphasis]. (see page 91)
That’s not what he said to our host, is it?”
Ditto. This isn’t a court of law. No-one is under oath to tell the whole truth.
In any case, the argument that if a narrative is false in a few minor points that means that it is false in its entirety is one that belongs far more in the playground than in the debating chamber.
Thanks for your reply Bayard. Of course, Morrison is free to say anything he likes – as long as it none of it can be construed as a ‘hate crime’. But if he says something about reasonably significant events in his life to one person, and more or less the opposite to someone else, it casts doubts on his credibility. If he was testifying as a witness in court, he would probably be getting a hard time under cross-examination.
“But if he says something about reasonably significant events in his life to one person, and more or less the opposite to someone else, it casts doubts on his credibility.”
Well yes it would, but we are not talking about more or less the opposite, we are talking about him giving one person one set of facts and someone else another set of facts, but those acts do not contradict each other, unlike the story of the gunshot wound. So as I said, he is guilty of not telling the whole truth, but this isn’t a court of law, so he doesn’t have to.
Are you not aware that that Mark McNicol appealed for a war chest / crowdfunder for two QCs or two solicitors to carry out investigations into Willie McRae’s death? Instead he employed two former Special Branch policemen John Weir and John Walker, who are obviously covering up for their chums in SB. Mark McNicol was duped/conned to employ these two to obtain a truthful report. Several on the panel have told me that they were untruthful.
Weir was lying when he told former policeman Willie MacDonald that I had said that he was the driver of the car that conveyed Supt. Hamilton to see Mr McRae at his office. Again Weir is evasive. With regard to the reports that I was on a police course along with a sergeant from Greenock who allegedly said that I spoke a lot of ‘Chaff’, I do not know this person and never met him.
Several members of the McNicol’s panel of judges were dismissed for asking John Weir questions he could not answer. They told me that they could not believe a word he says and considered what he did was bordering fraud.
I along with Roderick MacKay volunteered to attend the panel, us being the last two people who admit to seeing and speaking to McRae shortly before his demise. McNicol was in agreement that I attend. However a few days later I was told not to attend; Weir and Walker were given a free hand to spout all the lies they wished to the panel. An Aberdeen solicitor and notary public told me that Weir was all the time attempting to attack my honesty and credibility, and that this had greatly devalued the whole investigation.
Is it not strange that two people who followed McRae on the 5th of April 1985 gave statements but the Crown Office were in agreement that they be withdrawn. John Weir never touched on that important aspect.
Having read the two John’s untruthful report I sent an e-mail to McNicol demanding my £700 back. This was refused. He also refused to state how much cash was realised in the Crowdfund and how much was paid to John Weir or John Walker. Author Ron Culley, who was on the panel, also asked McNicol, and his similar request was ignored.
If you believe the lies in the report by former Special Branch John Weir you will believe anything. John Weir is Lying when he reports that a police controller would not say over the radio that Special Branch was following McRae’s car and wished him stopped by a marked police car. I heard this message coming over the AS radio. Of course they wanted him stopped and in custody to open his personal belongings to get a copy of his house and office keys. John Weir is also lying when he reports that the controller at Stewart Street police office would not send a message on the radio saying that Supt. Hamilton had been informed (a) that my colleague PC David Phinn had come across highly Confidential Files so dangerous that they would bring the Government down, and (b) that Special Branch were informed and attending along with Det. Const. Willie Williamson, whom I saw exiting the CID car outside, along with other policemen. I have no doubt whatsoever that they were SB officers. They were in possession of armfuls of flat-packed Boxes to fit A4 filing paper and several black marker pens. Obviously a premeditated exercise by SB.
John Weir is lying when he reports that PC Phinn had taken all the files to Stewart street police station. This was done by Det. Const. Williamson in CID red escort car, and files photocopied by SB and returned to McRae’s office by uniform branch, in case McRae became suspicious. In his report John Weir claims that David Phinn did not get a Chief Constables’ Commendation for finding these files in McRae’s office. Former police officer John Finnie (Northern Constabulary) and later SNP MSP sent me correspondence stating that FOI enquiry by him showed that David Phinn did in fact receive a Chief Const. Commendation. in fact I heard PC Phinn saying while having lunch at Stewart St. police station that SB were going to recommend that he did get a recommendation for finding files which were probably left out for him to see by SB after an earlier break-in.
Guess what? Mr McRae was under surveillance for a decade before his death! Mark McNicol was duped/conned to employ two former Special Branch policemen instead of his promise to employ two QCs or two solicitors to carry out an honest investigation. It is beyond comprehension how anyone was so stupid to believe that Del-boy John Weir, whom he met at his Sports Club but did not know, was a former policeman never mind attached to SB. There is nothing of note or substance in his unofficial drivel and lying report apart from his made-up pack of lies of so-and-so saying this or that. It was so important for him to attack the honesty of the last person who admits seeing McRae and speaking to him just hours before his death by a bullet. Former policeman and MSP John Finnie states that after an FOI enquiry, PC David Phinn did receive a Chief Constables’ Commendation, when John Weir and John Walker visited Roderick MacKay’s home to obtain a statement, he told me that he refused to let them further than his doorstep. Even at this late stage I am willing to attend any inquiry of even Court to get Justice for Willie McRae. To date I have spent £3,000 of my own money with lawyers with a view to get to the truth. I told a former leading Procurator Fiscal in Glasgow about McRae being followed on Friday 5th April 1985. After meeting in a Dunkeld restaurant. A complaint to PIRC in Hamilton was a waste of time and effort.
You seem to believe all these lies and the persistent attack on my character and honesty by the former Special Branch policeman who has been telling a pack of lies in his report and should never been selected for the report to cover up by his SB former colleagues. Mark McNicol was ‘conned’ to employ John Weir for the investigation, instead of his promise to employ two QCs or two Solicitors. I have never met this alleged police sergeant who was supposedly saw that I spoke a lot of chaff and certainly never been on a course with him while in the police service. Members of the panel have been in touch with me claiming that former SB policeman John Weir was lying. He claims in an email to me that he was a friend of Mark McNicol, who gave him my details. Mr McNicol sent me an e-mail saying John Weir was not a friend of his and he did not know that he was a retired policeman.
I have given all my information related to McRae’s demise to a retired Sheriff for his consideration. In his report, again, John Weir is lying when he writes that I made a vehicle registration check via personal radio on cars engaged on surveillance on Mr McRae. The ‘Justice for McRae’ Report is nothing but an expensive FAKE with a deliberate pack of lies, with the intent to discredit the truth of McRae’s death.
When I saw him being followed on Friday 5th April 1985, I knew within myself that McRae was in danger. Had I reported on the police radio that McRae was being followed by police that day, I would not be here today. On learning of McRae’s death a few days later I considered resigning with 14 yrs police service. Even at this late stage I would like an Inquiry into McRae’s death. Statements of two who followed McRae that day have disappeared. Also no word of Statement from former Scottish Crime Squad police officer Iain Fraser, who got a phone call from Newcastle to take observations on Willie McRae only three weeks before his death while he was attending an SNP Conference Meeting in Edinburgh. He had to reply ASAP to a PO Box no. in Newcastle and paid the sum of £130. Mr Iain Fraser invited myself and former FM Alec Salmond to visit him in The Grant Arms Hotel in Cullen on a Saturday, and told us both before opening hours of his involvement with McRae 3 weeks before his death. I strongly believe police have blood on their hands which will not wash.
Hello – the bit that always puzzles me is why was the car put back? I can’t understand that, as the crime scene (if that was the reason) was already compromised. The other thing is, if a car is driven off road in such circumstances, how can anyone not see where the car was?. If ever you’ve driven a vehicle in those conditions its almost impossible not to see traces even without bumps and scrapes.. And if the cops couldn’t see this when they put the car back what kind of cops did we have back then?
WT, yes the official narrative “An explanation for the gun being found 60 feet away from where the car was is that the car was supposedly removed, and then replaced in a slightly different spot on the Sunday after the bullet was discovered in his neck.” has Novichok levels of unlikelihood (not only why was the car put back, why did they get the place wrong, why didn’t they move the car when they discovered they’d got the place wrong, but why did the bullet not penetrate Willie’s neck, how did it end up in his neck if he shot himself in the back of the head, who shoots himself in the back of the head etc.). However, it seems some people believe it, simply becasue it is the official story and officialdom never lies.
«However, it seems some people believe it, simply becasue it is the official story and officialdom never lies.»
For most people believing in “novichok”, shooting yourself twice in the head, shooting yourself in the back of the head while driving, etc. is not because of trust in officialdom or stupidity, but because of self-preservation: they understand well that “deviancy” often has consequences. Not many want to be Assange or Murray, even if they admire them. Conformism looks safer. Many middle class people in particular have learned to keep quiet and not even endorse (never mind oppose) what officialdom says, because that can change with time, and what is official today can become “deviant” tomorrow.
” Many middle class people in particular have learned to keep quiet and not even endorse (never mind oppose) what officialdom says, because that can change with time, and what is official today can become “deviant” tomorrow.”
Blissex, if this is true, it means I have being living in “North Korea” or some such totalitarian dystopia, all of my life.
Upon reflection I feel your statement above has a strong air of verisimilitude about it.
Hail Kim Jong-il.
‘shot in the back of the head’ could mean shot from the side into the back of the head, like someone who was driving a car under the influenceof drink whilst attempting to shoot themselves in the side of the head might do. It does all sound very unlikely though.
Thanks for you reply WT. I reckon that the car might have been put back because, after the bullet was discovered in McRae’s neck, it meant that the incident could possibly now have been the scene of foul play. Therefore, nothing should have been removed until it had been thoroughly analysed by CID. I believe that Northern Constabulary hadn’t had to deal with any gun homicides in two decades, so this would have been unfamiliar territory. When CID turned up though, they probably would have been mainly interested in trying to find the gun so that it could be ruled a suicide, not worrying about exactly where the car was. I reckon that a fatal accident inquiry was not granted by the procurator fiscal so as not to seriously embarrass Northern Constabulary.
Re: ‘what kind of cops did we have back then?’ You get various levels of incompetence in every profession. Top of the list – the medical profession. If in doubt, always get a second (and possibly a third) opinion. For an insight into the type of (some) cops we have now though, why not read the blurb on the back cover* of ‘Drug Wars’ by Neil Woods & JS Rafaeli – or, better still, read the whole thing. Enjoy the rest of the weekend.
———–
The bullet didn’t penetrate his neck because it was .22 short ammo, Bayard, which is not very powerful. He probably shot himself in his brainstem because he rightly thought there was a reasonable chance the bullet wouldn’t penetrate his skull. If you were attempting to murder someone, and you only had one shot so that it would look like a suicide, and you had any idea of what you were doing, you wouldn’t use a .22 short calibre pistol.
———-
* which if I’m not mistaken, also features an image of Lincoln Green in Leeds, where I used to live for a while a few years ago – small world.
” I reckon that the car might have been put back because, after the bullet was discovered in McRae’s neck, it meant that the incident could possibly now have been the scene of foul play.”
What was the point of returning it to a different place, or do you think that the police were so incompetent that they couldn’t see where it was before? Indeed, what was the point of returning it at all? Are we really supposed to believe that the police would find a car with a man in it dead of a bullet wound and not suspect it was foul play until they found the actual bullet, or are you suggesting that Willie McRae didn’t bleed after he was shot in the head, or was it the neck?
“The bullet didn’t penetrate his neck because it was .22 short ammo, Bayard, which is not very powerful.”
.22 ammunition may not be very powerful, but it is certainly powerful enough to penetrate your skull, even when it isn’t at point-blank range. Funny how most suicides shoot themselves through the roof of the mouth or the temple, or do you think Willie McRae knew something they didn’t.
“If you were attempting to murder someone, and you only had one shot so that it would look like a suicide, and you had any idea of what you were doing, you wouldn’t use a .22 short calibre pistol.”
Ok, so the fact that it was a .22 shows it was suicide, but if you were going to murder someone and wanted to make it look like suicide, you wouldn’t use a .22, er because it might look more like suicide than a larger calibre weapon? Great deduction there, Sherlock.
Come on, it’s bleedin’ obvious that you only believe in this guff because you want to. The murder version (at least as far as it has been put here, even by you) all hangs together and has no improbabilities or loose ends, as much of the suicide version that has been mentioned is stuffed full of improbabilities and logical inconsistencies.
Thanks for your reply Bayard. It was fairly rough ground – it would have been very difficult to put the car exactly where it was before without helicopter transportation. The point of returning it would have been to make it available for CID analysis at the crime scene without necessarily informing them that it had been moved. They would have been preoccupied with trying to find the gun, rather than investigating how the car had come off the road which had already been carried out by uniform the previous day. However, it’s possible that that might not have happened. The two Australian tourists might have been mistaken about seeing the car on the Sunday, and the ‘high-ranking officer in Northern Constabulary’ who told John Finnie MSP that it was put back at the scene of the incident might have been lying for some reason.
The police didn’t know there was a bullet wound until the Saturday evening when they got a call from Aberdeen Royal Infirmary – the medical staff at Raigmore Hospital in Inverness, where he was taken on Saturday morning didn’t even spot it. Of course, he would have bled to some extent from the wound, but they probably thought the blood came from the car crash. They weren’t looking for a bullet wound.
It’s by no means guaranteed that .22 short will penetrate a full-size human skull even at point blank, especially if undercharged. It’s about half the power of .22 long rifle (LR). Even if it does, there’s no guarantee that it will do enough brain damage to kill – it’s not 9 mil. McRae was unlikely to have been an expert in firearms – maybe he got talking to someone in a pub once who told him the best way to kill yourself with low-power ammo is to aim at the brainstem. Who knows?
Re: ‘Ok, so the fact that it was a .22 shows it was suicide, but if you were going to murder someone and wanted to make it look like suicide, you wouldn’t use a .22, er because it might look more like suicide than a larger calibre weapon? Great deduction there, Sherlock.’
It’s not proof that it was suicide, but it’s strong evidence that it was suicide. Willie McRae was not a professional hitman in the employ of the British state, who would likely have had access to unlicensed, untraceable .22 LR and 9-mil etc handguns, which would have been much better options. The .22 short pistol was all he had to hand. Elementary, my dear Bayard.
” It was fairly rough ground – it would have been very difficult to put the car exactly where it was before without helicopter transportation. ”
You don’t need to be an expert tracker to see where a heavy car like a Volvo has been driven over rough ground. If Willie McRae had driven it there, why could not the police. Either it was initially removed using a recovery vehicle, in which case there would be the tracks of the recovery vehicle as well, or it was driven out, in which case there would be two sets of tracks. No of course you don’t need a helicopter, the car is supposed to have got there after being driven by a suicidal drunk. How much easier would it have been for a sober person in a normal frame of mind?
“The police didn’t know there was a bullet wound until the Saturday evening when they got a call from Aberdeen Royal Infirmary – the medical staff at Raigmore Hospital in Inverness, where he was taken on Saturday morning didn’t even spot it. Of course, he would have bled to some extent from the wound, but they probably thought the blood came from the car crash. They weren’t looking for a bullet wound.”
The police found a dead man in a car off the road and they didn’t stop to look why he had died? Pull the other one, it’s got bells on.
“It’s by no means guaranteed that .22 short will penetrate a full-size human skull even at point blank, especially if undercharged. It’s about half the power of .22 long rifle (LR). ”
First off, how do we know it was “undercharged”? Oh yes, it was in the official report. From my .22 shooting days, the bullets come in two types, subsonic and supersonic. Subsonic are hollow point for shooting game. They are perfectly capable of killing a man, even at some range, a point that was very heavily impressed upon me by my father before he let me use the gun.
” maybe he got talking to someone in a pub once who told him the best way to kill yourself with low-power ammo is to aim at the brainstem. Who knows?”
Congratulations, you have now clutched at so many straws you can use them to build a straw man.
“Willie McRae was not a professional hitman in the employ of the British state, who would likely have had access to unlicensed, untraceable .22 LR and 9-mil etc handguns, which would have been much better options. The .22 short pistol was all he had to hand”
Or was likely to have been able to get hold of, so to make it look like he wasn’t killed by a hitman, that’s what the hitman used.
When you are reduced to arguing that a man trying to make a murder look like a suicide wouldn’t use a gun that made the murder look like a suicide because he thought he might miss with it, and that a professional killer wouldn’t know how to kill someone with a .22 pistol but McRae would because he’d talked to a man in the pub, it’s time to give up.
Thanks for your reply Bayard. Apologies for the wait. According to the police investigation, the car probably left the ground for a brief period after the verge, landed and smashed one of its headlights (and the rear windscreen as well – although that’s a bit odd, if you ask me), veered off to the left, flipped over and then rolled* (possibly more than once) before coming to its final position in the small ravine created by the burn, facing largely towards the road. (see the diagram of page 173 of John Weir’s report). If that seems a bit dramatic, remember that it was a rough hillside with a slope of around 25-30 degrees (see photo 6 on page 184). It would have very difficult to drive it to the same position even if it was in a drivable condition.
As far as I’m aware, the police never saw McRae in the car before he was taken to hospital by ambulance. I would have expected the staff at Raigmore to notice the bullet wound, especially if it was in his temple, but remember what I said about the medical profession in one of my previous comments.
We don’t know that the .22 round was undercharged. It almost certainly wasn’t, but ex ante there was a chance that it could have been; cheap rounds aren’t made to particularly high tolerances. If it had been undercharged, it would have had little chance of killing him. A professional hitman would know this. There’s nothing about it being undercharged in the official report.
According to ‘Cartridges of the World’, standard .22 short rounds are subsonic. They can kill a person if they hit a vital organ or a major artery, and can penetrate an adult human skull, though it’s by no means guaranteed if that person has decent bone density. They are only recommended for shooting things like squirrels and rabbits. A .22 short round to the head might not necessarily be able to be made to look like a suicide because there’s a not an unreasonable chance that it wouldn’t kill a particular person.
Fun fact: Volvo means ‘I roll’ in Latin
That’s like saying that if you wanted to assassinate a US president you wouldn’t use a decrepit rifle, twenty-odd years old and with a faulty scope…..
Thanks for your reply Cornudet. I presume that’s a reference to Lee Harvey Oswald and his Carcano. In the official version of events at least, he wasn’t working for the US security services when he assassinated Kennedy. If he had been, I’d imagine they would have furnished him with a newish sniper rifle fitted with a top-notch scope and suppressor.
” If he had been, I’d imagine they would have furnished him with a newish sniper rifle fitted with a top-notch scope and suppressor.”
You obviously don’t know what Oswald’s job was, do you?
As far as I’m aware, Bayard, LHO was employed as an order filler at the Texas Book Depository in November 1963. I’ve a feeling you might be informing me that he was doing a bit of moonlighting for one or two people though.
“I’ve a feeling you might be informing me that he was doing a bit of moonlighting for one or two people though.”
Let’s just say, if you wanted someone to be a patsy and look as if they had just shot the POTUS, would you give him “a newish sniper rifle fitted with a top-notch scope and suppressor.” or would you give him a “a decrepit rifle, twenty-odd years old and with a faulty scope”. On the other hand if you did want to kill the POTUS, would you equip yourself with “a newish sniper rifle fitted with a top-notch scope and suppressor.” or would you equip yourself with “a decrepit rifle, twenty-odd years old and with a faulty scope”. This is the US, remember, where good rifles are not exactly hard to come by. You also have to take into account, that whether you succeed or not, you are going to spend a long time in gaol, so why risk missing by using crap kit?
I donated £700 to Mark McNicol when he appealed for war Chest / Crowd Fund to get two QCs or two solicitors to carry out an investigation into clever lawyer Willie McRae’s death. He got neither but got duped/conned to employ two former Special Branch Officers, one of whom he met in his sports club. Both Ron Culley and I, and an Aberdeen lawyer who was on the panel, also donated similar sums but despite several requests Mark McNicol has refused to disclose how much of each was realised. He also refused to refund the £700 I gave him, saying that nobody would get any money returned. I offered to attend the panel as the last officer to admit seeing and speaking to McRae, and McNicol was in agreement that I attend. However, a few days later he told me not to attend.
Detectives John Weir and John Walker were given a free hand to tell the panel evasiveness of the truth and attacked my honesty and credibility. An Aberdeen lawyer whom I knew sent me an e-mail stating that John Weir was persistently attacking my honesty and credibility, and that this had greatly devalued the whole investigation. Several other members of the panel, who asked John Weir questions he could not answer, were dismissed by Mark McNicol afterwards. They have told me that the panel had been told lies. John Weir writes that the fact I gave the names of police officers who would corroborate my statements is not true! When I told John Weir that Willie McRae was raging about his files being taken secretly to be photocopied at Stewart Street he said “you could have warned McRae about his behaviour and told him that his files were taken to be finger printed”.
As for giving a hitchhiker a lift from Fort William to Skye – that’s not true! It was another pipe-band policeman, Graham Richardson, who is still living. He has told me that it was him who gave this person a lift.
John Weir is also evasive of the truth when he says that I did a vehicle registration check on a vehicle circling McRae’s office by personal radio. This was done in my presence by Supt. Hamilton who had been stationed at Stewart Street office for many years. John Weir reports in his inquiry that he was not known at this office. John Weir then goes on to say that I was waving to shop keepers in Hope Street. There are no shops in Hope Street.
A Special Branch friend who served at Pitt Street for over 12yrs told me that John Weir joined SB from Govan before going back to Paisley as Chief Inspector in Female & Child Abuse. John Walker joined ‘A Division’ and told other officers that he did high-profile protection and was trained in firearms with a Private Agency. I was subjected to a hatred campaign for knowing the truth about SB who often worked with MI5. Doctor McLay, the police medical doctor whose surgery was two-up-left at Pitt Street, beside the Special Branch office, got in touch with me and told me that all the medical files relating to a Donald Archie Morrison, from Paisley division, who had totally the same name and police registration as me and who had a serious alcohol problem and had been drying out three times in Paisley Royal Infirmary, had been placed in my files by someone other than him or his nurses. He made a written complaint to the Chief Constable, which was a waste of his time. Dr McLay told me that me that, had anything had happened to me, this would have been in my files, had it not been noticed.
Police are still lying about McRae’s death 36yrs after his demise. It’s time for an inquiry. When I suggested to John Weir that an outside force from England should carry out an investigation into McRae’s death, he said that I did not know the law and that it is right for the police to stay silent.
Those who donated money like me have been fleeced!
Lord Advocate Elish Angiolinni requested that Northern Constabulary carried out further investigation into Willie McRae’s death. This task was allocated to Inspector Michael Sutherland. I got in touch with him and he sent Det. Gavin Andrews and a Det. Constable to see me.
I gave Insp. Andrews a 15-page statement. I found it rather odd that he asked me my father’s name and my mother’s name and that of my brothers and sister and their dates of birth. He then asked me which school I went to and all my places of employment since I left school. I also gave details of Roderick MacKay, manager of Agnews Store, West Nile Street, who served him on Friday, 5th April 1985. I saw two males who I have no doubt were policemen dressed in suits taking observations, taking surveillance on Agnews while McRae was (unknown to me) within the premises. Male with blue suit, 6 foot, slim build. Narrow shoulders with grey hair was looking directly across at Agnews while the other male, about 6ft, wearing a dark suit, with rounded shoulders and thick dark hair stood about 6 yards away and was looking into a plate-glass shop window which gave a reflexion to Agnews store. As soon as McRae exited the store, both focused their attention on McRae. Both were annoyed at my presence and one of them made an open-hand gesture as if to say “what is that cop doing talking to McRae?”. McRae held a bottle of Islay Mist in each hand and I held one of the bottles while he opened the car door. He told me that he was heading for Kintail for the weekend. He patted his bulging briefcase on the front passenger seat and said, ”I think that I’ve got them this time.” He then patted his briefcase twice more and said “Yes, I’ve got them this time.”
Mr McRae then said that he had to go through all his briefcase over the weekend. His maroon Volvo car was parked just opposite Crockets Hardware shop, in West Nile Street. I asked him if he wished me to stop the traffic to enable him to do a U turn. McRae headed northwards across Sauchiehall St and just went through the traffic lights at Renfrew Street and West Nile Street at amber, while the two who had been taking observations ran northwards across Sauchiehall St, pushing other pedestrians to the side, such was their hurry to get to two waiting double-manned cars that went through red traffic signals to follow McRae’s vehicle.
Eight months after I had given Roderick MacKay’s details to Gavin Andrews and Michael Sutherland, he had not been contacted to obtain a statement from him. When I contacted FOI Andrene MacLeod she could not find my statement, and then added that a Special Branch officer was attending from Aberdeen a week the following Monday and that he would know where my statement was, as they had been dealing with the case all along!!
I contacted Paula Murray of The Sunday Express and she expressed my concerns. The following day two CID officers from Northern Constabulary appeared at Mr Roderick MacKay’s home for a statement. I gave £700 of my own money to Mark MacNicol towards his appeal for a war chest or crowdfunder to get two QCs or two solicitors to carry out an investigation. He got neither, but got duped/conned into employing two former Special Branch police to carry out a fake and evasive report. Constable David Phinn was sent to the fourth break-in at McRae’s office, where his filing cabinets always were. They were jemmied open, and his files were taken secretly to Stewart Street by CID/SB via a fire door to avoid being seen while they were photocopied.
John Weir was critical of myself and other uniformed officers who returned the files on the instructions of Supt. Hamilton just in case McRae became suspicious, for not telling McRae the lie that the files were taken to be fingerprinted. Panelists were dismissed for asking John Weir questions he could not answer honestly. They did not believe him!
A notary public and solicitor from Aberdeen, who was a panelist, also gave a similar sum of cash to Mark McNicol, and sent me a letter stating that John Weir was always attacking my honesty and character and that this had greatly devalued the whole investigation. Having read the fake and evasive report I sent an email to Mark McNicol demanding the return of my £700. This was refused. Both Ron Culley and I sent a request to Mark McNicol asking how much cash was realised in the crowdfund and how much was paid to the former SB men John Weir and John Walker.
Only a public inquiry will get to the truth. When I suggested to John Weir that an English police force should carry out an investigation, he said that I did not know the law and that the police have a right to remain silent.
Probably you have been swayed by the former pack of lies and drivel in the report by former Special Branch policeman John Weir, whom you refer to as a “Private Detective”. Mark McNicol appealed for a War Chest / Crowd Fund to employ two QCs or two solicitors to carry out an investigation into Willie McRae’s death. I volunteered to attend the panel, me being the last policeman to admit speaking to McRae in West Nile St. And Mark McNicol was in agreement that I attend. He suddenly advised me not to attend, probably because detective John Weir did not wish the panel to hear the truth. Biltrami QC – whom I consulted at great expense – advised me that what detective John Weir was doing was common practice, with intent to discredit the truth of the complainer. Having read the lying ‘Justice for Willie McRae’ Report by Former Det. Ch. Inspector John Weir (who was in Female & Child abuse in Paisley) I demanded the return of the £700 I gave Mark McNicol. This was refused. Author Ron Culley and I sent repeated requests to Mark McNicol asking how much cash was realised in the campaign and how much cash was given to John Weir for his fake and false investigation. One of my former police colleagues, William MacDonald, has since told me that John Weir told him that I had sent him an e-mail stating that he was the driver of the police vehicle that conveyed Supt. Hamilton to see McRae at his office at the time his files were returned after being photo copied at police station. This is a deliberate and blatant lie by John Weir. The Scottish police are still lying about clever lawyer Willie McRae’s death 36yrs later. Time for an Independent Inquiry.
Living directly across the loch from where Willie had his highland home, and driving past his cairn on a frequent basis, I frequently ponder what happened to him. There’s many folks here who knew him but are quite reticent to talk – I’m sure there’s plenty back story that could be gleaned if someone had the time to engage over a lengthy period.
Aye you have to wonder what was in that briefcase but thanks for sharing that information with us.
Who knows?
On the subject of bravery, Seymour Hersh has done a Q&A on his Substack published investigative piece: https://thewire.in/world/seymour-hersh-us-destroyed-nord-stream-pipeline-interview
Q. What role does courage play for you in your profession?
What’s courageous about telling the truth? Our job isn’t to be afraid. And sometimes it gets ugly. There have been times in my life, when – you know, I don’t talk about it. Threats aren’t made to people like me; they’re made to children of people like me. There’s been awful stuff. But you don’t worry about it – you can’t. You have to just do what you do.
Goose,
Seems to be standard MO for some real nasties
https://theintercept.com/2018/03/29/john-bolton-trump-bush-bustani-kids-opcw/
Jm
There are very few investigative journos left. Maybe people like John Bolton think intimidating reporters out of existence is somehow patriotic? Who knows what he thinks?
The few genuine NatSec investigative journos that remain, are beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. They face near forensic inquisitions of their reporting; whereas their MSM colleagues can spew distortions, misinformation and even disinformation, and don’t even bother publishing corrections.
Is our society healthy?
Without derailing the topic. From the interview. This comment from Hersh:
The one virtue of the CIA is that a president, who can’t get his agenda through Congress and nobody listens to him, can take a walk in the backyard of the Rose Garden of the White House with the CIA director and somebody can get hurt eight thousand miles away. That’s always been the selling point of the CIA, which I have problems with. But even that community is appalled that he chose to keep Europe cold in support of a war that he’s not going to win. And that, to me, is heinous.
How many are there with the character and clarity of Seymour Hersh, in today’s shlocky media?
Willie McRae sounds like a man after your own heart Craig. A different animal to the bloodless careerists of today’s SNP. Sounds like the British state were all over him like a rash. Massive respect too to Donald John Morrison, a Scottish Serpico if ever there was one.
Thank you for believing the truth!
With apologies to Alfred Hayes, to the tune of Joe Hill.
I dreamed I saw our Will Macrae
Alive as you or me
Says I, “But Will you’re long since dead
I never died, says he
I never died, says he
At Bun Loyne, says I to him
Him standing by my bed
They found you dead inside your car
Says Will, But I’m not dead
Says Will, But I’m not dead
The Union Bastards killed you, Will
They shot you, Will, says I
Takes more than guns to kill a man
Says Will, I didn’t die
Says Will, I didn’t die
And standing there as big as life
And smiling with his eyes
Says Will What they can never kill,
Our Dream will never die
Our Dream will never die”
This Will ain’t dead”, he says to me
This Will ain’t never died
Where Scottish Folk defend their rights
This Will is at their side
This Will is at their side
From Wick to Wigtown and beyond
In every But and Ben
Where Scots campaign and organize
Says he, You’ll find Our Will
Says he, You’ll find Our Will
I dreamed I saw Our Will last night
Alive as you and me
Says I, But Will, you’re ten years dead
I never died,” said he
I never died,” said he
Seems to be the mark of an intelligence dept killing ie that it would be ruled suicide and yet be impossible for it to be so..
I believe every word uttered by the police man Donald John Morrison.
Mark McNicoll appealed for War Chest / Crowdfund to employ two QCs or two solicitors to carry out an investigation. I donated £700 towards this. Instead McNicoll employed two former Special Branch policemen who have told a pack of lies in their investigation. A former SB officer recalls when John Weir joined SB. An Aberdeen lawyer who was on the panel sent me an e-mail stating that John Weir was unnecessarily attacking my evidence and honesty, and that that had devalued the whole investigation. Three other members of the panel have said that John Weir was evasive of the truth and fired from the panel. I am telling the truth!
Thank you for believing the truth, Jacqueline. I have been a target for years. Chief Constable Iain Livingstone would not confirm or deny whether or not my phone was hacked when I sent him an FOI request.
Seymour Hersh said in a recent interview that his skill lay in “deconstructing the obvious”. There must have been good evidence to support the manner of death and gun flying out of the window after shooting at the back of the head while driving. A simple simulation suggests that a) it takes some doing b) there are less risky ways ways of succeeding in committing suicide. The same thoughts come to mind in connection with the “suicide” of Dr David Kelly, which must have been 20 years or so around this time.
And breathe out.
It seems Scotland’s Lord Advocate has instructed Police Scotland to destroy evidence in relation to the Luke Mitchell conviction for the murder of Jodi Jones. I believe Bain (Lord Advocate) is married to Turnbull, the prosecutor in the Mitchell trial.
https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/9846975/cops-destroyed-evidence-jodi-jones-luke-mitchell/amp/
I am an x cop. In the late eighties (87/88) i was a beat cop in Edinburgh and got assigned to a suspected burglary on a ground floor flat which happened to belong to a foreign diplomats son. I noted footprints in the flowerbed outside a window and what I believed to be screwdriver marks under the lower frame on the sash cord window, and dirty shoe prints inside under that window. Nothing was stolen but the occupant insisted that things had been “disturbed” as if the flat had been “searched”. I noted all the above in my report and my notebook. About 5 days later, I was summoned to a meeting with my shift inspector and upon arrival there was a “civilian” who was not identified to me; and the page in my notebook regarding this was ripped out by the “civilian”. This is a criminal offence! The inspector was obviously not cool with this, but – acting under orders – complied. After checking later entries he wrote a statement in the notebook explaining the “damage” as a result of a struggle during arrest of a suspect (completely unrelated offence) a few days later. I was later told off the record that the civilian was from “the security services” and to forget all about the whole thing.
By posting this I have breached various non disclosure agreements I have signed, including the official secrets act, but if they pulled this shit 34 years ago, what do you think they do today? I have no doubt that the establishment, that are supposed to protect us commit crimes up to and including murder, do so in the false belief that they are acting in “our” best interests…. Delusional brainwashed fuckwits but state sponsored…. You are as free as they want you to be….
Thankyou Steviesparkie. You are a brave brave man, and I’m hoping that your anonymity here will protect you from any repercussions.
Whistleblowers are very few and far between these days, and the subject of this thread illustrates part of the reason for that.
People have mentioned certain parallels with Hilda Murrell, and for those who haven’t done so I urge you to read ‘A Thorn In Their Side’ by Robert Green. The last few chapters of this book describe activities which are not just sinister, but a truly frightening illustration of what happens to those who attempt to take on the state psychopaths; who rely on ‘national security’ as a cover for doing exactly as they please, irrespective of the law or decent human morals.
Authorities do get angry about seemingly innocuous revelations from the past. The information disclosed, however seemingly insignificant and irrelevant, could be the missing piece of some puzzle. There was an angry reaction to those who went public with this information : https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/08/apple-helped-us-government-build-a-secret-ipod-former-engineer-says/
Why would they want an IPod with a a Geiger counter, built in secret?
I’ve never heard about Willie McRae, thanks for sharing.
A shocking crime but unfortunately it does not surprise me if McCrae was on the brink of exposing Mountbatten and other royals tied closely to Savile. The British State also murdered human rights lawyers Rosemarie Nelson and Pat Finucane in that same period.
Standard operating procedure. What amuses me is the very english 🙂 sense of “I am shocked, shocked to find that dirty tricks are going on in here”. As if when someone challenges the power and wealth of powerful and wealthy operators the reaction of the latter could only be “oh well, fair play”. Yet many of us have seen plenty of dirty tricks in office politics, inheritances, divorces, over much smaller stakes.
The most astonishing thing here is the extreme naiveness of McRae who had not safeguarded the documents, for example by putting several copies in the hand of trusted people, despite “four separate occasions to burglaries of the law office. On every occasion cabinets had been forced and papers had been taken, but no money.”
It now looks like that the Scottish judicial system along with Police Scotland targeted a child and sent that child to prison for 18 years for a crime he didn’t commit. Yes, difficult to comprehend but we are talking about a child. #Luke Mitchell.
So Willie McRae, a longtime victim of security-state harrassment, shoots himself in the *back* of the head, while driving a car!
Why should that be questioned? Especially when the police witness you spoke with was smeared by other cops as a liar.
To be in possession of that knowledge and still be suggesting murder and a cover up betrays both extreme naivety as well as a disgusting lack of trust in some cops.
Try to be more respectable and grown up please!
We have seen rather a lot of ‘immunity from prosecution’ for a whole host of dubious British state ‘actors’ in Scotland of late, much as Craig has previously highlighted. Which is to be expected whenever ‘colonialism becomes imperiled’. This is nothing new and has long been embedded as a part of the colonial system which has kept Scotland contained for the past three centuries and more. New social media has merely shone a modern light on such behaviours, which will not disappear until colonialism disappears.
As Albert Memmi wrote, a colonial society is: “supported by a very solid organization; a government and a judicial system fed and renewed by the colonizer’s historic, economic and cultural needs. Just as the colonized cannot escape the colonialist hoax, he could not avoid those situations which create real inadequacy. Colonization usurps any free role in either war or peace, every decision contributing to his (i.e. the colonized’s) destiny and that of the world, and all cultural and social responsibility”.
Thankfully mair Scots are slowly beginning to understand that independence is decolonization, much as UN C-24 tells us it is.
Willie McRae was a threat to ‘national security.’ He had to be eradicated, and was.
The GEC Marconi scientist death cases are worth looking into also.
I read the book “Open Verdict” by Tony Collins back in the early 1990’s. These deaths were very bizarre, the young woman drowned in a couple of inches of water in a pond at Taplow – Berks was the strangest.
This article about the suspicious circumstances surrounding the murder of Willie McRae is deeply disturbing. The author shares a first-hand account of his conversation with the last person to speak to McRae before his death, a former Glasgow beat policeman named Donald John Morrison. Morrison’s recollection of events raises serious questions about the involvement of Special Branch and MI5 in McRae’s arrest and subsequent death. The fact that McRae’s law office had been burglarized several times, with papers taken but no money, is especially concerning. The author’s description of Morrison as a calm and kindly man, with an inner steel that comes out when he is angry, is particularly evocative. It is clear that Morrison is still deeply affected by the events of that night, and it is a testament to his bravery that he is willing to speak out about what he knows. Overall, this article highlights the importance of uncovering the truth about McRae’s death and holding those responsible accountable for their actions.
Even the ad hoc cairn erected in memory of Willie McRae is subject to interference in so much as the council or someone has excavated a big ditch along the side of the road to stop vehicles being able to pull off the road and visit the shrine to McRae.
Just a very simple thing, but deliberately done, it shows the utter resolve to destroy all memory of the man.
The memorial cairn is pictured here:https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/willie-macrae-memorial. I am still waiting to find out from Lapsed Agnostic how a low calibre gun can both fail to penetrate a skull and yet have sufficient energy to propel itself many yards from the scene of its firing.
Apologies for not getting back to you yet, pete – I still haven’t had time to read all the blogposts you linked to, not least due to spending too much time arguing with Bayard. I will try to read them all as soon as I can. By the way, the ones I have read were actually written in 2014, not 2022.
I’m fairly sure that .22 short revolvers don’t have enough recoil to propel themselves 60 feet, so I think we can clear that one up. Anyways, in my original comment I wrote:
‘An explanation for the gun being found 60 feet away from where the car was is that the car was supposedly removed, and then replaced in a slightly different spot on the Sunday after the bullet was discovered’
That explanation comes from the research of Paul Delamore, and is supported by two eye-witness accounts* and by a former high-ranking unnamed source in Northern Constabulary, who is supposed to have informed the former MSP John Finnie (also a former officer in Northern Constabulary) in 2010 that the car was moved back.
However, it’s possible that the gun wasn’t found 60 feet from the car, but directly beneath where it had been. The allegation that it was originally came from an article in The Herald in 1995, on the basis of an interview with the officer who allegedly found the gun in the burn. However, in 2016 he told John Weir that the remark was taken “out of context” and that it was “a lot of rubbish” (see page 53 of Weir’s report that I linked to in my original comment).
Another officer who was involved in the search for the gun gave this in a statement to John Weir:
‘we moved northwards towards the final resting place of the car. As we reached the point where the car had been towards the lower part of the hill, I heard [First Officer] saying the words to the effect that “I found it” or “I got it”. I have a picture in my mind of him holding up a small silver handgun, which he was holding by the tip of the grip which I remember was white. The barrel was pointing to the ground, with water dripping from it. He had recovered it from the pool under the waterfall, which was located at the offside of the car, which I had seen there the day before at a point under the driver’s door.’ (see page 56 of the report)
Hope all this is of some use to you.
* He lies like an eye-witness – Russian proverb
I for one am no longer inclined to trust these figures and their accounts. If recent history has shown us anything it is that political figures outside the approved limit can be mistreated and lied about with total impunity. Our police, respectable journalists and respectable politicians have revealed themselves to be some of the most dishonest and unscrupulous sections of society. Nobody in Official Britain is going to fight the corner of dissidents.
Thanks for your reply Jay. As usual, you make some good points. Don’t forget though that Willie McRae’s death happened nearly 40 years ago, in a part of Britain where the Christian faith is adhered to more closely by many people than in other parts of the realm. Thou shalt not bear false witness, etc. Even amongst non-believers, these things tend to get inculcated to a certain extent. I find it easier to believe that any discrepancies in people’s accounts are due to unreliable memories etc, rather than any elaborate conspiracy to cover up state-sanctioned murder. I suppose I could be wrong.
I offered to attend panel and Mark McNicol was in agreement that I could attend to give my evidence as I am the only policeman who admits seeing and speaking to McRae on Friday 5th April 1985. McNicol told me that he would give me the date and place of venue. However ,it is obvious to me that John Weir /John Walker did not agree with me attending and answer any questions. Having given £700 to McNicol I was anxious to tell them the truth. McNicol then told me that I was not to attend. Rodk McKay was also willing to attend having served McRae that day in Agnews. Hope for proper Public Inquiry.
Thank you for your support! Senior police are lying when they claim that a Comprehensive Report was submitted about clever Lawyer Willie McRae inn April 1985. No mention whatsoever about his office being broken into four times before his death. No mention on Special Branch following McRea’s car on the south side of Glasgow and requesting marked a police vehicle to stop his car, him being a suspected drunk driver. What they wished was him in custody, to secretly open his property envelope, to copy his house keys and office keys, which was the regular practice by SB for someone they had interest in. McRae hounded for decade before his death.
Thank you for your support and believing in the truth.
For a whole decade before his demise clever lawyer Willie McRae had been under surveillance by Special Branch and MI5. Chief Constables in Glasgow and senior officers were aware of this but did not give him any protection.
I was subjected to a hateful campaign by senior officers for not only knowing but seeing and being aware of the possible danger to McRae’s life! I was forced out of Stewart Street police office after 23yrs police service. I was known as thief-catcher Morrison! On five occasions I should have had a Constable’s Commendation but this was overlooked.
1. Apprehended, on my own, a 6ft male with a knife involved in an attempted robbery in Buchanan Street subway office.
2. Apprehended (along with a young police recruit) two males involved in very serious assault and robbery with a knife on a student at RBOS, St. Enoch’s Square, Glasgow.
3. After two weeks on holiday in Western Isles, I reported for muster along with the pipe band at Stewart Street police office. Supt. Hamilton informed us that there had been a spate of more than a dozen assaults and robberies on elderly people in the city over two weeks. Most had been in banks or building societies prior to attacks. Then he added, “Good to see you back, Donald; you will get the bastard.” I said “I will do my best sir.” I left the office along with PC Alisdair MacPhee from Skye. As we approached Argyll Street from Buchanan Street, we both saw an elderly lady being helped to a chair by two office girls. The lady gave us a good description of the suspect who had ran up northwards in the direction we both came from. I anticipated that the suspect had cut through from Buchanan Street to Queen Street via Springfield Court Lane. I ran southwards across St. Enoch’s Square and eastwards along Howard Street, towards the car park at the rear of John Lewis’s, where I apprehended him after a chase. He discarded a wallet-type purse into the flower beds during the chase and this was recovered by a young couple who had seen me running after the suspect. The wallet was full of money and photographs of the lady I had left with PC McPhee. He was taken to a police box at St. Enoch’s, and a search revealed that he had also committed two other robberies earlier that day. Det. Helen Bunce was detailing the inquiry. Good apprehension, after only four hours on the street. Again, no Chief Constable’s Commendation.
4/5. involved finding an anorak discarded by the accused with a name on it after an assault and robbery at a jewellers, and seeing two suspicious youths trying to sell expensive jewellery proceeds of crime by housebreaking in Ayrshire. Again no Commendation.
All because of knowing the truth about Special Branch hounding Willie McRae.
Thank you for your support and your belief in the truth.
Sad to say that senior policemen and indeed Chief Constables of Strathclyde police were aware that clever lawyer Willie McRae was under surveillance for a decade before the end of his life, which I strongly believe was taken by a hand other than his own. I saw McRae under surveillance by two males, who I have no doubt were police officers, while he made a purchase in Agnews Store, West Nile Street. The manager was Roderick MacKay (a distant relative of my wife and I from North Uist), and both him and his wife recall that they served McRae on Friday 5 April 1985, and he told them that he would be sitting in front of a log fire in Kintail later that evening. Mr McRae’s Volvo car was parked opposite Crockets hardware shop in West Nile Street. I stopped traffic to enable him to do a U turn to head north across Sauchiehall Hall Street and Renfrew Street.
I seemed to catch the two who were taking observations on the hop. They both ran across Sauchiehall Street, pushing other pedestrians to the side, such was their hurry to get to two waiting cars, which they entered and went through red traffic lights to ‘tail’ McRae’s vehicle. Pedestrians who had to jump out of their way were heard to shout at the drivers. I saw the second car driver extend his arm out to apologise to those on the crossing. This was a common courtesy for police drivers to do if attending an urgent call.
When John Weir visited me for a statement, he said that had that been Special Branch they would not be wearing suits. Then he asked if there was a cross-flow of traffic at Renfrew Street / West Nile Street at that time.
He was desperate to catch me out. Some of the panellists did not believe anything he said. Mr MacKay passed away in October 2020 due to ill health and COVID 19. A few months later Chief Constable Iain Livingstone’s spokesperson reported in the media that there was no corroborative evidence that lawyer Willie McRae was in West Nile Street on Friday 5th April 1985, adding that McRae always bought two bottles of whisky before heading to his holiday home! I thought this would happen so I obtained a signed statement from Roderick MacKay myself, and gave a copy to author Ron Culley for his book Firebrand.
Thank for supporting the truth. I had been repeatedly subjected to a serious hatred and demoralising orchestrated campaign by senior police officers for knowing the truth about Special Branch involvement and surveillance on Lawyer Willie McRae and breaking into his office filing cabinets and removing them to Stewart Street police station before his death. I was known as ‘thief catcher Morrison within A Division. I considered resigning from the police after Mr McRae,s death . I informed QC Joe Biltrami whom I knew and he said that I would be safer staying within the service. Mr Biltrami,s partner who is still a QC with the company was like minded. While on patrol on my own I heard a call coming over the police radio that a six foot male armed with knife was involved in armed hold up at ticket office within Buchanan Street subway. I acknowledged the call as I was only about 50 yds away. I saw him holding the knife in the direction of the elderly attendant at the ticket desk. I drew my baton and gave the suspect a heavy blow to either his wrist or arm causing him to drop the knife to the tiled floor. I thereafter wrestled him to the ground and pinned him there for several minutes until plain clothes arrived to help me place him in handcuffs. Normally any policeman placing himself in danger like this to protect the public would be awarded Chief Constables Commendation. I knew that this would not happen in my case. Again while having tea break in police temporary office in St. Enoch Square along with a new young police recruit from college the desk officer Joseph shouted to me that there had been a serious assault and Robbery at RBOS cash dispenser directly across from the office. I ran out of the office and saw a young student being escorted to the office by a middle aged couple. The tall slim youth had pulled hisT shirt out of his trousers and was holding the shirt to his face. I asked the youth if I could see his injury and he removed the shirt from his face. His face had been slashed from the lobe of his left ear to his chin. The youths teeth were visible through his cheek. At this point a lady gave me a good discription of the suspects. Aged about 37/40 medium uild and wearing identical grey anoraks with elasticated waistband and cuffs. Both of us ran across Howard St. and into Dixon St. and onto the Broomielaw. Inoticed the two suspects sharing the money as they stood in the Clyde Walkway. As a former Highlannd Games Wrestling champion for many years I knew that I had to go in heavy and asked my young recruit to have his baton ready but to stay behind me as I did not wish him to get hurt on his first days on he beat. As we ran towards them I saw one of them shaking his left arm and I quickly with experience believed that that is where he had concealed the weapon. I quickly overpowered him and when his co- accused saw what happened to him he placed both his hands above his head. Again no Chief Constables Commendation because of knowing the truth about Willie McRae. I do not like policemen like John Weir who was lying to attack my honest and Character to cover up for his SB shitbags . Had I been 30yrs younger I would be chapping on his door and kindly ask him to repeat the lies he has told about me The young recruit who was with me could be still a serving officer. Thee were three other similar cases involving serious crime where I made apprehensions, after Mr. McRae,s death but with 23yrs police service I transferred to another division. Indeed I found it depressing walking by innocent Mr. McRae,s offices who was done dirty. Time for Inquiry . I have been in touch with BBC but they declined .
Thank you for believing the truth.
Yes, McRae’s office was broken into our Times between Feb/March 1981 and April 1985. McRae’s office was 1 up right, while Celtic Director’s office was 1 up left. The Celtic Director told me that he had been there for 28yrs without the security of his premises being overcome. Shortly after Mr McRae moved in next door to him, both his premises and that of McRae’s were broken into. He told me that he blamed McRae’s presence next to him as the reason for the break-ins.
At street level the entrance was secured by a heavy metal roller door which was never forced to gain entry in any of the office break-ins. The roller door was opened with a true or false key.
I heard a police radio message that Special Branch were following McRae’s car on the south side of the city and they requested a marked police car to stop him, him being suspected driving under the influence. Once in custody SB had the practice of opening the property envelope of those detainees in which they had an interest and getting keys secretly copied to their homes and offices without the knowledge of the owner. Former SB John Weir (Mark McNicol’s investigator) is lying when he writes in his report that this would not happen.
I believe that police have blood on their hands which will not wash.
Thank you for believing the truth! I have spent about £3000 of my own money for Justice For Willie McRae, whom I only knew professionally. I am ashamed to say that Strathclyde police / Grampian and Northern Constabulary have been not only evasive of the truth but lying about Mr McRae’s death. Having sent a FOI for my Statement I had to wait for several months for reply. The OIC of FOI, Ms. Andrene MacLeod, blamed a poor filing system, then added that a Special Branch officer from Aberdeen would be attending a week the following Monday and that he would know where my statement was, as they had been dealing with the McRae case all along. In all my police service this is the first time that I ever heard of SB dealing with a death.
Thank you for believing the truth, which I will never be afraid to tell. I was subjected to an orchestrated campaign of hatred for knowing the truth, and considered resigning with 14 yrs service. Two Biltrami QCs advised me to remain in service and said that my wife and I would be probably safer. With 22yrs service I had enough and went to another division until I retired. I was known as ‘Thief-catcher Morrison’. Between 1985/1992 in Glasgow City Centre I had several several arrests while on uniform patrol on my own which would normally result in Chief Constable’s Commendation but not for me.
No 1. Arrested on my own a 6ft. male armed with 6in fix-bladed knife involved in a hold Up in Buchanan Street subway station. With a baton I delivered a heavy blow to his hand holding the knife; he dropped the knife and then I wrestled him to the floor. Having wrestled at Highland Games all over Scotland this was not a problem.
No 2. While having lunch in St Enoch’s Square small office along with a recruit only days in the police, the desk Constable Joseph shouted to me that there had been a serious assault and robbery at a cash dispenser at RBOS, across from the office. I ran out along with the young cop and saw a middle-aged couple helping a student lad to the office. He was holding his T-shirt to his face. I asked him to show me his injury and could see that he had been slashed from his left lobe of his ear to his chin and his teeth were visible through his cheek. Another lady gave me a good description of the two males – wearing grey anoraks with elasticated waistbands ands and cuffs, aged about 40yrs – involved and said that they ran across Howard St. into Dixon St. towards the Broomielaw. Both of us ran in that direction and I asked the young recruit to stay behind me and to have his baton ready but not pulled. I spotted the two sharing the money in the Clyde Walkway. They were about 100yds to my right hand side. I decided not to run directly to them as this would have given them time to have their weapons ready. We both ran along the foot way to make them think that we were attending another call. Once along side them we went directly towards them. I noticed that one was shaking his left arm and surmised that this is where he had the weapon and went for him first. After his mate saw what happened to him, he placed both hands above his head. Both were arrested and charged. This young officer could be still serving.
No 3. Having reported on duty after holidays in Hebrides we mustered at Stewart Street police office and Supt. Hamilton told about 20 officers that there had been over a dozen assault and robberies in the City centre over a fortnight. These assaults were forming a pattern and elderly people who had been in banks or building societies were attacked. Then he added we must catch this B*stard. Then he said, “nice to see you back, Donald – you will catch him”. I said that I would do my best. My colleague – PC Alasdair MacPhee from Skye – left the office and walked down Buchanan Street on patrol. As we approached Argyll Street we saw a lady with a blue coat lying on the foot way between Argyle Arcade and Argyle Street. Two girls came running out of a shop and helped the lady onto a chair. She had just been assaulted and robbed. The lady gave us a good description of the male suspect who had reddish hair and wearing a blue sports top with a white stripe down the sleeves and that he had ran to the direction we had come. I did not see him but surmised that he had cut though Springfield Court Lane which gave access to Queen Street. Then I thought that he would have changed direction and go behind John Lewis’s store car park. I ran across St. Enoch Sq and along Howard Street, where I saw him walking towards me, gave chase and arrested him. While chasing him he threw an object into the flower beds. A young couple who had seen me chasing the youth recovered the ladies wallet-type purse from the flower beds. A search revealed that the accused had assaulted and robbed another two earlier on that morning, one of whom came from Bailieston. Detective Constable Helen Bunce was allocated the enquiries. Again no commendation.
No 4. Assault and Robbery in a Jeweller’s (60/64 St Enoch’s Sq). Attended at Irish Tourist Board, 1 up Dixon Street, Howard St, Glasgow, to see if they had seen anything suspicious, while CID, mounted branch and motorcyclists were at the jeweller’s. The manager told me that it was his lucky day and that someone had dumped a new anorak with orange lining on his foyer. I asked to see it and examined pockets etc., and found that there was a name in biro on the hanging tag. I immediately contacted the CID and asked them to see me immediately at Bord Fáilte Na Eirinn, and gave them the anorak. Turns out that one of those involved in the robbery had borrowed his brother’s anorak and was not aware that his name was on it. The two from Castlemilk were apprehended quickly. Neither myself or the manager were interviewed or gave a statement. The CID must have lied at High Court and stated that it was themselves that had found the anorak with name on and probably got a Chief Constable’s Commendation for my investigation.
Just out of curiosity, is there a definitive list of people bumped off by the British state? We have Willie McRae, John Smith, Robin Cook, Pat Finucane, Hilda Murrell, Rosemary Nelson, and David Kelly. Whom am I missing?
Jean Charles De Menezes?
There was also the case of the chap who was due to give evidence about a secret paedophile group operating in Eastern England. I can’t remember his name, but remember reading about it in the local newspaper, but at the time I never gave it much thought.
He was driving to the court to give his evidence but never arrived, as he was found dead in his car which had run off the road on a bend, and hit a tree. The police said his brakes had failed, but gave no more details.
For Jean Charles De Menezes, I always thought it was a genuine mistake. Not a mistake in the sense of ‘they genuinely thought he was a suicide bomber’. No. More a mistake as in, they had to show a ‘Paki’ (my apologies for using that term here, but it’s in context and I hope the mods allow it) that you don’t go letting off bombs in our city, innit? And they just happened to get someone whose skin was dark, but who had no link not only to the people who had let off the bombs, but who didn’t even come from the same bloody hemisphere.
Never heard of the other bloke.
“For Jean Charles De Menezes, I always thought it was a genuine mistake. Not a mistake in the sense of ‘they genuinely thought he was a suicide bomber’.”
He was a participant (electrician) in the 7/7 London attack, apparently he couldn’t keep his mouth shut and blabbed a lot on how he was involved in it, so he had to be silenced hence the chase down and multiple bullets through the head, and the killers were acquitted by you guessed it, Kier Starmer.
Hang on .. what? What??? Is this tongue in cheek??
“For Jean Charles De Menezes, I always thought it was a genuine mistake. Not a mistake in the sense of ‘they genuinely thought he was a suicide bomber’. ”
Then may I suggest you read the transcripts of the inquest (if you can find them).
It will take you a long time (I know because I ploughed through all 36 days of the evidence some years back), but you will find that the evidence given did not always add up, depending on whether it was given by the police or the public.
Presumably, the police were chosen as reliable; but most of the public were ignored if their accounts of events contradicted the police evidence?
I remember stumbling upon an internet explosives forum many years ago, where a serious technical discussion on remotely detonated electrical anti tank weapons was ongoing. I didn’t understand much of what they were saying because they seemed to be experts in electronics, and I can manage to wire a plug but not much else.
However, the gist of what they were saying relied on several accounts from tube passengers of the carriage floors being bent upwards where the explosions had happened. This suggested that the blast came from under the vehicle, not from within.
Their discussion centred around whether the (then) current anti-tank ordnance could be modified to blow under a tube train. Their combined conclusion was that it was possible; but the power needed would be so great given that scenario, that it would be necessary to site the bombs close to the 630v DC supply points, because the track and trains exert resistance and voltage drops could be too large if the explosive items were placed too far from a supply point. They might fail to detonate.
I did bookmark this conversation, but the forum seems to have disappeared over the years. Anyhow, the upshot of all this was that the ‘exercise’ planners would need to consult a competent electrician in order to get the siting right. They did show a map of the tube explosions and coincidentally they were all close to power supply points.
Their conclusion was that De Menezes was said electrical consultant, but after the event he could not be relied upon to keep quiet, and so had to be silenced in the only way these psychopaths know how.
A quick memory trawl:
> Daniel McCann, Mairead Farrell and Sean Savage – ‘death on the rock’;
> Gareth Williams – MI6 spy found in holdall with zips padlocked on the outside and key inside;
> ~2,000 + ‘official’ reported deaths from Covid jab, as per MHRA Yellow Card data;
> Michael MacIsaac – Naked man with chair leg shot by Police;
> Ian Tomlinson – newspaper vendor who died after being struck by a police officer.
Many, many more I’m sure and that’s not even including civilian war deaths killed by the UK MIC.
There was a young human rights lawyer from West Wales who disappeared one night and was found later floating in the Thames, with there being no apparent reason why he should have gone anywhere near the river.
We can only assume that William McNeilly – the ‘Faslane Whistleblower’ is still alive and that neither he nor his Royal Navy career has suffered.
SEPA (Scottish Environmental Protection Agency) held/holds a dossier on the MOD Faslane nuclear safety transgressions. It (SEPA) has been the subject of at least two newspaper articles regarding its frustration at MOD immunity from prosecution. Last year its computer system was hacked by ‘Eastern Europeans’. We have not been told what information was lost.
McNeilly confirmed much of their frustration and added some security breaches for good measure.