Alex Salmond - court case concluded

[merseymouth]

Morning, It should be clearly pointed out that this was not a total vindication of the former Fist Minister's behaviour?
On count hat he was charged with drew forth the odd Scottish Verdict level "Not Proven"! That certainly equates to "No Smoke Without Fire".
Which if nothing else points towards him having to change his current method interacting with other people!
Comparison with the the American creep will inevitably be made, on his own head be it. MM

[Bonefishblues]

An interesting article and perspective on the man

https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/opinion ... ile-about/

[Vorpal]

Posts removed.

Please, no sniping.

Thanks.

[Morzedec]

Vorps, your suggestion is unfair to all birdwatchers.

Now I'm going to curlew up with a book, out in the sunshine.

Happy days,

[carpetcleaner]

Morning, It should be clearly pointed out that this was not a total vindication of the former Fist Minister's behaviour?
On count hat he was charged with drew forth the odd Scottish Verdict level "Not Proven"! That certainly equates to "No Smoke Without Fire".
Which if nothing else points towards him having to change his current method interacting with other people!
Comparison with the the American creep will inevitably be made, on his own head be it. MM

He has not been proven guilty of anything so he's innocent as far as I'm concerned.

There seems to have been rather a lot of smoke in this matter, but there was no fire in the jury's opinion. I wonder if the justice system is sometimes too keen to prosecute in cases like these for reasons of political correctness, just as political correctness sometimes causes the authorities to turn a blind eye to other offences and to show an extreme reluctance to investigate them at all, never mind to prosecute.

[Will]

Morning, It should be clearly pointed out that this was not a total vindication of the former Fist Minister's behaviour?
On count hat he was charged with drew forth the odd Scottish Verdict level "Not Proven"! That certainly equates to "No Smoke Without Fire".
Which if nothing else points towards him having to change his current method interacting with other people!
Comparison with the the American creep will inevitably be made, on his own head be it. MM

He has not been proven guilty of anything so he's innocent as far as I'm concerned.

There seems to have been rather a lot of smoke in this matter, but there was no fire in the jury's opinion. I wonder if the justice system is sometimes too keen to prosecute in cases like these for reasons of political correctness, just as political correctness sometimes causes the authorities to turn a blind eye to other offences and to show an extreme reluctance to investigate them at all, never mind to prosecute.

The Crown Office & Procurator Fiscal Service would have had no other option than to bring this to court, no matter how flimsy the evidence was. In the #MeToo era, no one wants to be the prosecutor who failed to prosecute a high level figure like Alex Salmond. It is much easier to bring it to court and let the jury decide.

I followed the case online each day. I have experience of serving on a jury in a sexual assault case and if the details of the witnesses evidence that were being tweeted by the BBC were accurate then I don't think the jury I served on would have found him guilty either. I have no doubt that the man is a complete and utter sleazebag, but it does not look like he crossed the line into criminality - I cannot abide the man and would have been quite happy to see him sent down, but at the end of the day, the evidence provided by the witnesses did not support a guilty verdict.

Will

[merseymouth]

Hi Carpetcleaner, It is obvious the Scottish Law is a closed book to you? Not Proven is an indication that the jury had disquiet over giving the person in the dock has not in their opinion been cleared "Beyond Reasonable Doubt"!
So it clear that one one charge they doubted that the defendants innocence is not absolute.
Hence my "No Smoke Without Fire" comment. I certainly implies that the jury thought that he should look at his interaction approach!
Not the American Creeper, but not up to mixed company. Looking OK, Touching No Way. MM

[Tangled Metal]

An interesting article and perspective on the man

https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/opinion ... ile-about/

Interesting article. I nearly wrote it off after he gave pseudo psychobabble comments about his insecurity then effectively days he's not a shrink n so don't ask me to back those statements up.

However later on he seemed to explain things from a more sound base, politics! The last comment about being his former speech writer adds weight to the politics bit. Just wish he'd left out the insecurity bit.

Salmond had the not proven verdict. Officially it's effectively the same as not guilty (mygov.scot website) however many see it as letting the jury say they think he did it but it's not proven beyond reasonable doubt. Questionable view IMHO. Not guilty means not proven beyond reasonable doubt. There's no innocent or guilty coin flip in any UK justice system, it's effectively proven beyond reasonable doubt or it's not. That's my view on the verdicts whether right or wrong. Although I believe if the two not proven/not guilty verdicts exist together for much longer then more cases like this will draw out louder calls to scrap the "middle verdict option".

[mercalia]

Morning, It should be clearly pointed out that this was not a total vindication of the former Fist Minister's behaviour?
On count hat he was charged with drew forth the odd Scottish Verdict level "Not Proven"! That certainly equates to "No Smoke Without Fire".
Which if nothing else points towards him having to change his current method interacting with other people!
Comparison with the the American creep will inevitably be made, on his own head be it. MM

He has not been proven guilty of anything so he's innocent as far as I'm concerned.

There seems to have been rather a lot of smoke in this matter, but there was no fire in the jury's opinion. I wonder if the justice system is sometimes too keen to prosecute in cases like these for reasons of political correctness, just as political correctness sometimes causes the authorities to turn a blind eye to other offences and to show an extreme reluctance to investigate them at all, never mind to prosecute.

The Crown Office & Procurator Fiscal Service would have had no other option than to bring this to court, no matter how flimsy the evidence was. In the #MeToo era, no one wants to be the prosecutor who failed to prosecute a high level figure like Alex Salmond. It is much easier to bring it to court and let the jury decide.

I followed the case online each day. I have experience of serving on a jury in a sexual assault case and if the details of the witnesses evidence that were being tweeted by the BBC were accurate then I don't think the jury I served on would have found him guilty either. I have no doubt that the man is a complete and utter sleazebag, but it does not look like he crossed the line into criminality - I cannot abide the man and would have been quite happy to see him sent down, but at the end of the day, the evidence provided by the witnesses did not support a guilty verdict.

Will

it is still surprizing none of the witnesses stuck? some thing very very wrong.

[carpetcleaner]

Hi Carpetcleaner, It is obvious the Scottish Law is a closed book to you? Not Proven is an indication that the jury had disquiet over giving the person in the dock has not in their opinion been cleared "Beyond Reasonable Doubt"!
So it clear that one one charge they doubted that the defendants innocence is not absolute.
Hence my "No Smoke Without Fire" comment. I certainly implies that the jury thought that he should look at his interaction approach!
Not the American Creeper, but not up to mixed company. Looking OK, Touching No Way. MM

If an allegation against someone cannot be proved then they are innocent as far as I am concerned.

Not proven seems a silly verdict to me and I'm glad we don't have it in this country. Innocent until proved guilty is a much better approach.

[carpetcleaner]

The Crown Office & Procurator Fiscal Service would have had no other option than to bring this to court, no matter how flimsy the evidence was. In the #MeToo era, no one wants to be the prosecutor who failed to prosecute a high level figure like Alex Salmond. It is much easier to bring it to court and let the jury decide.

I agree with your Me Too comment.

But plenty of people were quite prepared to be the police officer, council employee or CPS person who did not try hard enough to bring lots of alleged criminals to justice in other cases involving vulnerable people including children, and where the evidence was far from flimsy.

It seems some victims count more than others, and some alleged perpetrators need to be prosecuted more readily than others.

Political correctness should not be allowed to decide which victims are listened to or which alleged criminals are sent for trial.

[Will]

Hi Carpetcleaner, It is obvious the Scottish Law is a closed book to you? Not Proven is an indication that the jury had disquiet over giving the person in the dock has not in their opinion been cleared "Beyond Reasonable Doubt"!
So it clear that one one charge they doubted that the defendants innocence is not absolute.
Hence my "No Smoke Without Fire" comment. I certainly implies that the jury thought that he should look at his interaction approach!
Not the American Creeper, but not up to mixed company. Looking OK, Touching No Way. MM

If an allegation against someone cannot be proved then they are innocent as far as I am concerned.

Not proven seems a silly verdict to me and I'm glad we don't have it in this country. Innocent until proved guilty is a much better approach.

Under Scottish law you cannot be found guilty on a single piece of evidence - it must be corroborated. When it comes to cases like this, juries can use something called the Moorov Doctrine. The Moorov Doctrine allows juries to use the evidence of one witness to one offence to corroborate the evidence of another witness to a different offence (i.e. it shows a pattern of behaviour). The offences have to be similar in nature and occur around the same time. There must also not be any collusion between the witnesses - In the Alex Salmond case there was clear evidence of one of the accussers (Ms. A) discussing the case with other accussers (this would have undermined the prosecution case).

The jury found one charge Not Proven. I suspect that a majority of the jury was convinced of his guilt on that charge, but without corroboration could not return a guilty verdict. In such cases, it is not uncommon for a jury to return the Not Proven verdict.

Will

[Vorpal]

Not proven makes a great deal of sense, if on the balance of probabilities, he is guilty, but there is insufficient evidence to convict him.

[Ben@Forest]

Not proven makes a great deal of sense, if on the balance of probabilities, he is guilty, but there is insufficient evidence to convict him.

That Not Proven willI likely make a huge difference to anything he does in the future. If it had been a guilty verdict the opprobrium would have been huge and any media prospects extremely limited, as it is he's likely to be on the circuit for years now.

[carpetcleaner]

Not proven makes a great deal of sense, if on the balance of probabilities, he is guilty, but there is insufficient evidence to convict him.

If there is insufficient evidence to convict somebody then they are innocent in my opinion.

I'm not surprised that nearly all other countries don't have the not proven verdict available.

All the charges against Mr Salmond were not proven because the evidence was not good enough to convict. I see no good reason to single out one of them with another type of verdict.