Alex Salmond was cleared, but stench lingers around the whole ugly saga

IN the midst of a burgeoning pandemic, the High Court in Edinburgh was the venue for one of the most extraordinary trials of our time.

Alex Salmond sat in the dock for 11 days facing a catalogue of alleged sex crimes including attempted rape.

The court became a parallel universe as public life ground to a halt and the city streets fell ominously quiet.

There were moments of pure theatre straight out of TV legal drama: one of the witnesses was asked if he could identify Mr Salmond, our longest-serving First Minister, by pointing to him.

When the accused took the stand for four hours, the opening exchanges, going over the detail of his career, had the feel of a surreal chat-show.

Then there was the emotionally charged testimony of the nine complainers, which underpinned the Crown’s central claim that Mr Salmond was a ‘sexual predator’ – debunked by the jury.

Twelve of the charges against the former SNP leader led to not guilty verdicts, while jurors found a charge of sexual assault with intent to rape not proven.

On the question of criminality, juries must always have the last word – and their judgment was clear.

Yet in order to achieve those acquittals, Mr Salmond’s legal team made a number of concessions about a man they admitted had acted inappropriately; his own QC described his conduct at times as ‘stupid’.

Mr Salmond was a ‘Marmite man’ who was ‘tactile’ and by his own admission he sometimes breached social boundaries – but that didn’t make him a criminal: an argument the jury accepted.

Yet Mr Salmond’s threatened revenge on those he claims concocted the allegations against him has provided a distraction from some of the more disturbing disclosures in court.

Former Scottish Secretary David Mundell is now lobbying for an inquiry into the ‘conduct, operation and practices’ of the civil service in Scotland while Mr Salmond was First Minister.

The Tory MP for Dumfries-shire wants Sir Mark Sedwill, the UK’s top mandarin, to investigate after ‘trial testimony [which] calls into questions how senior civil servants handled complaints’.

In so doing, he said they may have ‘compromised the safety of the individuals who made them’.

Mr Mundell’s successor, Alister Jack, is said to be sympathetic to the proposal.

There are already three other probes planned in Scotland in the wake of the trial. Their primary focus is likely to be Nicola Sturgeon’s involvement in a botched internal inquiry into complaints of sexual harassment against her former mentor.

But the Sedwill investigation – if it materialises – might be the most pressing of them all.

Some witnesses alleged that Bute House in Edinburgh, the First Minister’s official residence, was a place where some staffers feared to tread.

Mr Salmond could be ‘extraordinarily pugnacious’, as his former special adviser Alex Bell told the court; he was a volatile man who expected the best – and didn’t keep his opinion to himself if his high standards were not reached.

One prosecution witness, Christopher Birt, Mr Salmond’s former private secretary, claimed the then First Minister’s staff were ‘frightened’ of him, and stressed to the point where they suffered mental health problems.

Others rejected these claims, and spoke instead of of a high-pressure environment where the work was tough but rewarding.

(Elbow-bump: Salmond and QC Gordon Jackson)

Miss Sturgeon, and indeed Mr Salmond, say they knew nothing of an alleged change to working patterns at Bute House, which meant unaccompanied women were not permitted to work with the First Minister at certain times.

Mr Bell told the court he had returned to the drawing-room of Bute House where he had left one of the complainers, Ms B, alone with Mr Salmond, because he wanted to ‘ensure the welfare of [his] colleague’.

One alleged victim, Ms A, said she did not complain to anyone at the time about what she claimed had happened to her, as she did not know ‘how to say no to the First Minister’ – the ‘most powerful man in the country’.

This was to become a running theme among many of the women, who cited Mr Salmond’s status and reputation as barriers to pursuing formal complaints.

The testimony of one of his accusers, Ms F, showed Mr Salmond had believed that his own actions had been inappropriate, though never unlawful.

She was sufficiently concerned to report her experience with Mr Salmond to her bosses.

Indeed, one of those who knew of the matter was Mr Salmond’s former chief of staff, Geoff Aberdein, who gave evidence for the defence.

Mr Salmond admitted in court that he had apologised at the time for what he said amounted to no more than a ‘sleepy cuddle’.

The charge – sexual assault with intent to rape – was found not proven, the legal equivalent of not guilty.

One civil servant, Joseph Griffin, said following one alleged incident between Mr Salmond and a woman member of staff, David Wilson – director of communities and ministerial support for the Scottish Government – was alerted.

The web of knowledge about what went on at Bute House in the Salmond years needs to be unpicked to understand how the civil service dealt with. concerns that were raised about the man who led the government for seven years.

I watched every moment of the trial – but one question asked by Mr Salmond’s QC, Gordon Jackson, has lodged in my memory.

Complainer Ms A said what had happened to her was ‘groping’ (Mr Salmond was found not guilty of this charge).

In one of the trial’s most jarring cross-examinations, Mr Jackson asked her: ‘You call that groping?’ Ms A confirmed that she did.

On Sunday, it emerged that Mr Jackson was caught on camera branding his client an ‘objectionable bully’ – and identifying two of the alleged sexual assault victims in the case – while travelling on a train between Edinburgh and Glasgow.

The QC – Dean of the Faculty of Advocates – has now referred himself to the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission: yet another Salmond-related inquiry.

It was a deeply unedifying coda to the trial, though it’s likely that few of those who watched his performance in court will have been shocked to hear about Mr Jackson’s indiscretions.

In that context, it’s not surprising that Mr Salmond’s accusers said in a joint statement released by Rape Crisis Scotland that his acquittal had been ‘devastating’.

They said: ‘We remain firm in our belief that coming forward to report our experiences and concerns was the right thing to do.’

In his closing speech, Mr Jackson acknowledged that he may have offended some jurors by implying that one of the alleged offences was ‘trivial’.

He told them: ‘There is no such thing as a trivial offence, but some are more serious than others.’

The QC also insisted that the case against Mr Salmond ‘absolutely stinks’ – referring to the claim that the allegations were cooked up for political reasons.

That was an argument his lawyers were forbidden from exploring in any depth. – though we can expect to hear a lot more about it from the Salmond camp in coming months.

Of course, the former First Minister’s innocence in the eyes of the law is now beyond question.

But in the aftermath of his trial, it’s clear that there isn’t so much a stink as a lingering stench about the Salmond saga.

*This column appeared in the Scottish Daily Mail on March 31, 2020.