This extract from my notes highlights the significant role of David Clegg and the editor of the Daily Record in their relentless pursuit of Alex Salmond, from the end of October 2017 to 2020.
These individuals committed numerous breaches of the press code of conduct and had the temerity to refuse to release the identity of the informant who illegally passed confidential information to them which subsequently released without verification of fact, to the public through their newspaper.
I contend that the Daily Record management forfeited the right to take this stance when a full assessment of the conduct of David Clegg from October 2017 is considered.
They conducted a prolonged and vicious witch-hunt against Alex in breach of every code of conduct applicable to the press. The editor insisted applying codes of practice both ways.
And muddying the water there is the relationship between Clegg and Liz Lloyd the First Minister’s SPD who enjoyed each other’s company on a long trip to the USA.
Who was it the made the call to the Daily Record?
Surely the police can demand the release of the persons name from the editor of the Daily Record.
22 August 2018: The Crown Agent, took possession from the Lord Advocate, of the documentation sent to the Lord Advocates Office by Richards.
Then, in the course of a hastily arranged meeting he attempted to hand the package of documents to the police together with a request that they formally investigate the allegations as a criminal matter.
The police declined the request and refused the offer of the documentation. They would not be involved.
The Daily Record’s informant was not evidently advised of the police refusal and this reduces the number of likely whistle-blowers substantially. Who knew???
23 August 2018: At around 1600 hours the Daily Record newspaper telephoned the Scottish Government press office and claimed it had knowledge of the allegations against Alex but they would not publish without confirmation and this was not forthcoming from the Scottish Government.
23 August 2018: The Daily Record telephoned the police and asked for an update on the criminal investigation of Alex.
Evidently they were not aware at the time that the police had refused the Crown Agent’s invitation to get involved.
23 August -29 August 2018: Alex held a press conference and announced he would move to a Judicial Review of the procedure.
Panic in the Scottish Government. A very concerned Ms B wrote to Richards enquiring about the whistleblowing illegal release of confidential information to the Daily Record and the impact of the Judicial Review.
She was advised that investigation into the whistle blowing had not identified any individual but they were not yet at an end.
Richards told her not to be unduly concerned about the Judicial Review since the police had the information in their possession and their investigations would “sist” bypass any Judicial review.
Click to access SP_SGHHC_-_FN47.pdf
23 August 2018: A follow up story was published in the morning edition of the Daily Record containing details that could only have come from leaked documents demonstrating that their informant had access to Evans Decision Report or an extract from it.
The leaking of the information was a prima facie criminal act, deeply damaging to the interests of Alex and a blatant invasion of the privacy of the complainants as well as a direct contravention of the assurances of confidentiality given to all.
23 August 2018: The unsavoury events of the day before when coupled with the leaking of confidential information pertaining to the unfounded allegations against Alex and its publication in the press sparked the ire of Alex and his legal team and their well judged pointed response really did hit Evans and her team of Dim Dum’s hard.
24 August 2018: Sturgeon posted a statement on Twitter:
25 August 2018: Alex issued a public statement in which he complained that confidential information about the probe had been maliciously leaked to the media and reiterated that his previous statements held true that he had not sexually harassed anyone.
26 August 2018: Sturgeon continued with her attacks on Alex with another twitter:
26 August 2018: The Sunday Post published a front page article informing readers that the Scottish Government’s legal advisor David Harvie, from the office of the Lord Advocate, James Wolffe, had advised that sexual misconduct claims against Alex should be passed to the police.
But it withheld the contrary information that the police had rejected the approach on the grounds that the internal investigation ordered by Sturgeon was not yet complete and there was no precedent that would support the involvement of the office of the Lord Advocate or the police.
The article also included spurious gossip not in the public domain at that time stating that in addition to the two complaints being investigated by Evans, there were civil servants other than the complainants who had registered allegations against Alex Salmond.
Lord Wolffe told the Holyrood inquiry he was not party to the advice and he had not been informed of the intervention beforehand by his officers.
Confirmation David Harvie acted alone? If Wolffe is to be believed
27 August 2018: Alex’s Senior Counsel wrote to Evans and asked her to instigate a formal inquiry into how the allegations against Alec had been released into the public domain. Giving voice that: “in this case confidentiality has been broken greatly to his detriment and in a way which puts at serious risk the anonymity of both complainants.
It urgently needs to be established who breached that duty of confidence and why.” An investigation was ordered.
For readers who might be confused: Woman A in the Mackinnon investigation became Woman F in the criminal trial: Woman B in the Mackinnon investigation became Woman K in the criminal trial: Woman H in the criminal trial, as far as I know, played no part at all in the Mackinnon investigation as her complaint in around October/November 2017 was to the SNP Compliance Officer who agreed with her that he would sit on it and use it as necessary.
It became a police complaint some time after August 2018 when Evans notified the police prompting Alex to launch his Judicial Review action and the conspirators got busy drumming up all the complainers they could. These events are explored some detail here:
27 August 2018: Allison sent an unsolicited email to a former Scottish Government employee who also received a further unsolicited email from Ms Ruddick of the SNP the following day. The individual concerned, who provided a defence statement, had never even been a member of the SNP. Her contact details were given to Allison by a Government Special Adviser.
Another Special Adviser was in contact with the majority of people who thereafter became complainants in the criminal trial, shortly after the story being leaked to the Daily Record on August 23rd 2018
The Allison email: August 27, 2018 at 0746: I am not sure if you will remember me. I was Director of People/HR at the time you worked with Scottish Government. I hope that this finds you well. You may be aware that there has been considerable media coverage here over the past few days in connection with Alex Salmond.
We are aware that this coverage has been quite upsetting for some people and we are keen to support in any way we can. Your name and email address has been provided by a current employee at the Scottish Government, noting that you were someone who worked with Scottish Government previously and they were keen to ensure that you were offered any support you may require. I would be very happy to have a chat by phone or by email and put you in touch with the various support channels if that would be helpful. Kind regards Barbara Allison. Talk about fishing expeditions
Comment: And yet in her evidence to the Holyrood Inquiry on 15th September 2020 Allison specifically denied that the Scottish Government had any role in contacting potential witnesses or former civil servants after the police investigation had started on August 23rd 2018.
27 August 2018: Sturgeon circulated an email to 100,000 SNP members. Despite her best efforts to recruit complainers to her cause not one complaint was received in response.
27 August 2018: A second more explicit email was selectively circulated by the SNP Chief Operating Officer Sue Ruddick, to a smaller number of potentially supportive SNP staffers and ex staffers.
It was not well received and provoked profound disquiet about the ethics and legality of the approach.
An SNP official based in Westminster refused to get caught up in the fishing expedition and refused to supply “names” expressing the view that she was not prepared to take part in an obvious ‘witch-hunt’ which would be incompatible with her professional responsibilities as a lawyer.
29 August 2018: Alex resigned from the SNP having begun legal proceedings against the Scottish government for its conduct over an investigation into claims of sexual harassment against him.
Flatly rejecting the allegations. he said claims by the Daily Record breached confidentiality and it: “It urgently needs to be established who breached that duty of confidence and why adding I did not come into politics to facilitate opposition attacks on the SNP, and have decided to resign to “clear my name” and prevent “substantial internal division” within the SNP.
31 August 2018: MacKinnon wrote to Ms A and Ms B advising that contrary to expectations a Judicial Review had been instructed and they would need to await the outcome which could be a while.
Click to access SP_SGHHC_-_FN48.pdf
Afternote: In addition to advocating the “pressurising” of police Murrell deployed his senior staff to recruit and persuade staff and ex staff members to submit police complaints.
An activity that was co-ordinated with Special Advisers and was occurring after the police investigation had started.
From the description of the material released to the Committee it is clear that any supporting evidence establishing this point was not shared by the Crown Office with the Committee. Why?
It was clear that defeat in the Judicial Review would have severe consequences. Cabinet Ministers thought it should lead to the resignation of Evans. Lloyd, the Special Adviser most associated with the policy believed that her job was in jeopardy and accordingly sought to change press releases in light of that.
Sturgeon’s team felt threatened by the process as did the civil service. The documentary evidence shows that Special Advisers were using Civil Servants and working with SNP officials in a fishing expedition to recruit potential complainants. This activity occurred between late August 2018 and January 2019, well after the police investigation had started.
The Judicial Review cannot be viewed in isolation. The effect of it, and its likely result of a defeat for the Scottish Government led to the need to escalate these matters to the police, even if that meant doing so entirely against the wishes of the two women who had raised concerns.
Evans: “we’ve lost the battle but not the war’ message of 08 January 2019 sent to Allison whilst she was on holiday in the Maldives was not (as she tried to claim) a general appeal for equality but rather showed her knowledge that there were further proceedings to come and her confidence that the criminal procedure would render such a loss in the Court of Session irrelevant.
The Internal Misconduct Investigation Report
The response of the Scottish government to the illegal leak of confidential information to the Daily Record is contained in a report which was classified “strictly confidential” with distribution restricted to a few senior government officials.
A few, heavily redacted but informative extracts were released for public consumption through the Information Commissioners Office (ICO).
Namely:
3.5 To progress the investigation, a witness would be needed who would be willing to provide information about the method of disclosure (for example, by hard copy being passed in person) and the identity of the culprit.
3.6 The Daily Record declined to provide information as to how or by whom they came by the copy of the report, relying on the journalistic exemption within the DPA 2018, clause 14 of the Editors Code of Practice and s.10 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981.
3.7 23 members of staff were identified as having knowledge of, or involvement in, the internal misconduct enquiry. These members of staff were interviewed by the Data Protection Officer at the SG as part of their Data Handling Review. The interviews did not disclose any information which would enable a suspect to be identified.
3.8 In the absence of any information coming to light, or any witness coming forward, there was insufficient evidence to point to any specific suspect and to allow the investigation to move forward. The matter was closed.
Click to access FOI%2B-%2B202100191814%2B-%2BAnnex%2BA.pdf
Editors code of Conduct
Accuracy:
i) The Press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information, including headlines not supported by the text.
ii) The Press, while free to editorialise and campaign, must distinguish clearly between comment, conjecture and fact.
Privacy
i) Everyone is entitled to respect for his or her private and family life, home, health and correspondence, including digital communications.
ii) Editors will be expected to justify intrusions into any individual’s private life without consent. Account will be taken of the complainant’s own public disclosures of information.
Harassment:
(i) Journalists must not engage in intimidation, harassment or persistent pursuit.
Comment: What a can of worms!!.
The police were not asked by the Scottish government to investigate the 23 August 2018, criminal leak of confidential information.
This despite the Daily Record blatantly breaching rules 1,2 and 3 of the editor’s “code of conduct”.
That the Daily Record was permitted to decline, (without a legal challenge), to provide information as to how or by whom they came by the copy of the report, relying on the journalistic exemption within the DPA 2018, clause 14 of the Editors Code of Practice and s.10 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981 is a travesty of justice and a betrayal of the 2 complainants and Alex Salmond.
David Clegg’s Version of Events
“In the afternoon of 23 Aug 2018 I was working in a quiet corner of a Dundee coffee shop when I received the most memorable email of my life. It was from the Daily Record’s head of news, Kevin Mansi, and contained just five words and a picture. “Anon letter that’s come in.”
The unremarkable introduction meant I nearly spat out my coffee when my phone loaded the attachment, a scanned copy of a 100-word document which had arrived at the newspaper’s Glasgow office that morning.
The contents, headlined “Scottish Government reports Salmond to police”, were absolutely incendiary. An anonymous whistle-blower was claiming that two women had made sexual misconduct complaints against the former first minister.
The government had investigated the allegations before passing them to the police. A summary of the most serious charge was also included. It described an alleged late night sexual assault by Alex on a young female civil servant.
The claims were so extraordinary that the natural reaction was to dismiss them as the work of a crank. Yet on an initial reading my instinct was that several elements of the document seemed authentic. The dry language used to summarise alleged behaviour that would ultimately become a criminal charge of sexual assault with intent to rape could only have been penned by a civil servant.
The small details also felt right – in particular the use of the three letters FFM to describe Alex. It was an abbreviation for former first minister that would mean nothing to the general public but which I had heard many times in political circles.
On balance, my judgment was that it was entirely plausible that the account was genuine. It was also safe to assume that if it wasn’t a hoax then we were in a race against time to break the story. If this information had reached us, it would not be long until other media organisations also got wind of it.
For all we knew, a similar package could have arrived at the office of every newspaper in the country that morning. We had to proceed with speed, caution and care. I immediately left the café and sprinted the half-mile back to my house.
The race was now on to verify the accuracy of the information independently so we could publish regardless of on-the-record confirmation. All the journalists involved were acutely aware that the slightest inaccuracy in any subsequent story could have disastrous consequences.
I began methodically contacting sources who had been useful in recent months in the hope they could provide further corroboration. Tellingly, I found I was unable to get any senior Scottish Government special adviser to answer their phone. Meanwhile, Mansi worked his extensive police contacts.
It was not until 2000 hours that we had enough confidence in our information to contact Alex directly to give him the opportunity to present his version of events.
I was in my small home office when I dialled his mobile number and heard that distinctive voice click onto the line. I had last seen Alex the previous year when I took him for a long lunch in Glasgow two weeks after he lost his Westminster seat.
His tone was much colder on this occasion. “Yes, David, what can I do for you?” he asked. My heart was pounding as I replied: “We’re doing a story on the allegation the police are looking at. Should I be speaking to a lawyer, or is there a comment I should take from you?”
There was a long pause. “And which allegation is this, David?” “The one from December 2013 at Bute House.” “And what’s the detail of it, sorry, David?” “That a staff member at Bute House was harassed or assaulted after a function.”
In the terse three minute conversation that followed Alex avoided being drawn on the substance of the complaints and focused on fishing for more information on the status of the police investigation and inquiring into who was the source of the story. He also asked for the allegations to be put to him in writing, a request I duly obliged.
With the Record’s print deadline looming, an urgent conference call was convened to discuss whether to publish in the event of no substantive response to the details of the allegations being received from the Scottish government, Police Scotland or Alex. This was a big call for the new editor David Dick, who had only been in the post a few months and was now dealing with the biggest story any Scottish newspaper had tackled in living memory. After a brief discussion, he decided he was happy for us to proceed and I began writing.
At 2132 hours an email from Alex’s lawyer, David McKie of Levy & McRae, dropped into my inbox. Its contents were breath-taking. He did not dispute the existence of the allegations or even make a threat of defamation action. Instead, he warned that publication would be a breach of privacy and cited the recent high profile finding against the BBC regarding coverage of the police investigation into pop legend Sir Cliff Richard. An accompanying statement from Alex insisted he was completely innocent of any wrong doing and would fight to clear his name and he would be taking the Scottish Government to court over its botched handling of sexual harassment complaints.
Comment 1: A Daily Record employee had already telephoned the Scottish government press office at 2000 claiming confirmation of the accuracy of the leaked information had been received.
Clegg’s assertion that he had been contacted by Alex’s legal team at 2132 hours did not impact on the decision by the editor of the Daily Record to publish.
Comment 2: Clegg’s singular and persistent unfruitful pursuit over many months, seeking from Scottish government employees and civil servants, information that would be damaging to Alex was in direct contravention of a number of the conditions contained in the news editor’s “code of Practice”. As was the inaccurate reporting of fact evidenced by the malicious and irresponsible headline claiming that Alex had been reported to the police over sexual assault allegations which was not the case.
The truth of the matter is that on 21 August 2018 the Crown Agent, according to the police informed them of the Government’s intention to release a story of the fact of the complaints to the press and the Chief Constable and another senior officer strongly advised against it and refused to accept a copy of the internal misconduct investigation report.
An exchange of views confirming the urgent desire of the Scottish Government to get the information into the public domain.
Just two days later, on Thursday 23 August 2018, without informing the police of their decision to ignore their advice not to do so the Government informed Alex Salmond’s legal team of its intention to release a statement at 1700 hours.
Alex ’s legal team advised in return that they would interdict the statement pending the outcome of the Judicial Review petition and the government withdrew its intent to publish information to the public. An interdict was not processed on the strength of the government undertaking.
The bombshell was dropped at 1600 hours with the information that the Daily Record newspaper had phoned the Scottish Government press office with knowledge of the story but without confirmation it could not publish. Confirmation was not forthcoming from the Scottish government.
Then, at 2000 hours an employee of the Daily Record telephoned claiming confirmation of the leaked information had been received and the story would be published that night. The story broke at 2200 hours.
A follow up story was published on Saturday 25 August 2018 containing specific details from the leaked complaints demonstrating that their informant had access to the Permanent Secretary’s decision report or an extract from it.
The leaking of the information was a prima facie criminal act, deeply damaging to the interests of Alex and a blatant invasion of the privacy of the complainants as well as a direct contravention of the assurances of confidentiality given to all.
The conclusion of the legal authority who assessed validity of the complaints was that they were “sympathetic to the thesis that the leak came from a Government employee”. But legal action action could only be instructed if the police investigated matters and identified the person(s) who leaked the information.
The GROK report is here:
caltonjock 