The Verdict Aftermath

Duncan Brown, a freelance photographer, has kindly allowed us to post some photographs taken in the aftermath of Tommy Sheridan's guilty verdict last Thursday. Of all the pictures I have seen taken from  outside the court that day these are, in my opinion, the best. 

You can find more of Duncan's work on his Flicker Page Here

Grounds for Appeal?

Amongst this weekend's barrage of articles in the press about Tommy Sheridan's conviction for perjury was this piece from Andrew Whitaker in Scotland on Sunday . Mr Whitaker quotes "A source close to the Sheridan camp" as saying that Mr Sheridan's legal team " will start to put together an appeal against the conviction within a matter of days." and gives some of the grounds on which they may do so. As well as this possibly opening up a new chapter in the case it also gives us an opportunity to discuss some of the legal arguments that occurred during the trial that we could not report at the time.


Firstly however I'd like to caution readers about interpreting the verdict. Many people in the comments on this site and elsewhere seem to believe that the jury's decision means that the twelve women and two men on the jury must have believed all of the Crown witnesses and disbelieved all of the defence witnesses. This is not necessarily correct. Some people may recall the hypothetical case of "Frank the bank robber" which featured many times in our comments section as a way to discuss legal issues without breaching the contempt of court rules then in place. To continue that analogy for a moment, just because Frank was convicted does not mean the jury necessarily believed both Rosie the bank clerk and Officer Dibble the policeman. They may have done of course, or they may have thought Rosie was too short sighted and Constable Dibble  too drunk to identify Frank, yet were convinced by the CCTV footage of the robbery. Alternatively they may have concluded that  the CCTV footage was too blurry for identification purposes but that Rosie was a reliable witness. There is simply no way to know. 


Similarly in the Sheridan case we cannot conclude that the verdict means a particular witness was believed or not. For example the jury may have concluded that the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) executive members who testified that Mr Sheridan admissions at the 9/11/04 meeting were telling the truth, or they may have decided that they had a motive to lie, could not be trusted but that the "McNeilage video" proved that the admissions has been made. Alternatively the jury may have concluded that the video was a "concoction", as the defence contended but that the Executive members were reliable and telling the truth, those outside the ranks of the jury can never know for sure. In court Mr Sheridan often put to witnesses "the jury in the 2006 case thought you were lying" to which the Advocate Depute would always object on the grounds no-one could know what was in the mind of the 2006 jury. Those objections were always upheld. So, with that in mind  let us look at the issues, some given in the article above and some that are not,  that could be possible grounds for appeal. Please note I have not the legal knowledge to know if these are valid grounds for appeal or am I expressing an opinion on the validity or otherwise of the issues in relation to the verdict.

Any questions?

We are just putting together a post on some of the legal arguments in the trial that we could not report at the time, as they occurred outside the presence of the jury. 

If anyone has any specific questions they would like us to try and answer, could they email them to us or put them in the comments. 

Thanks

James

"Social Media" and the Sheridan Trial

I was asked last week if I would write a piece about my experience of blogging the trial of Tommy and Gail Sheridan and what that could tell us about the role of blogging and other "social media" in covering criminal cases. I completed it on Thursday while we were awaiting the verdict.  I've posted a copy below, I hope readers will find it useful.

On Thursday 23rd of December, after hearing  46 days of evidence from 68 witnesses, a jury of 12 women and 2 men finally delivered their verdict of guilty against Tommy Sheridan. People outside Scotland may be unaware of how big a story this was, Tommy Sheridan is still the best known political figure in Scotland and even before it began his perjury trial was already dominating the media. I could also see, through conversations with people on both sides, what bitter divisions within the left in Scotland, of which I am a member, the case was causing. Just before the trial began I decided to write an account of the proceedings, I hoped that creating, in so far as I could, a fair an accurate account of what happened in court would help people follow the trial on the basis of accurate information, not tabloid tittle tattle.  In the three months since it began  The blog has been mentioned in the Scottish parliament,reached half a million page views. and, I would suggest, has raised new questions about the role of social media in the reporting of the administration of justice in Scotland.

At the end of the first week of the trial. by a journalist who had seen me taking notes in court and asked “who I was with ” I answered “I'm doing a blog" he did not appear particularly impressed.   I had no legal training but had checked the rules around contempt of court and decided that as long as I stuck to what was said in the presence of the jury I would be within the law. On the second week, when Tommy Sheridan sacked his QC, there was a debate amongst the journalists if they could report that. Two decided that they could and phoned their offices with the news, We then returned to court to be told by the judge that this matter could not be mentioned until the jury had been informed. It was instructive  to watch senior reporters leap up and run out of court to get their story pulled and a lesson to keep being careful about what I posted.

Another consequence of Tommy Sheridan’s decision to represent himself was that it raised the drama of the trial to new heights. The accused,  one of the best orators of his political generation, directly faced his accusers. At times the scenes seemed more like an argument in a pub rather that a High Court trial, as former friends attacked each other as “liars” and “fantasists.” Two prosecution witnesses were cited for contempt of court and one convicted. We also saw Andrew Coulson, David Cameron’s chief media adviser, being questioned about his role in phone hacking while students and police were battling on the streets of London. It was rumored in court that Mr Coulson was not happy about being told that he could not use his phone in the witness room telling staff, “that could be the Prime Minister calling!” He was informed that the rules applied to everyone, including him.

As the trial continued even some  journalists began to admit that they read the blog, and no-one had any complaints about it’s accuracy.  What everyone asked about though was the comments I was posting, I was told on a number of occasions that if anything was going to get me into legal trouble it was that. To me blogging without comments isn’t blogging, the only advantage social media has over conventional media is it’s ability to promote interactivity between writer and readers. However approving comments began to be a full-time job in itself at the peak times we could be receiving 250  a day, of which around 100, if published, would have potentially laid me open to a charge of contempt of court. To date we have allowed nearly 6000 comments and deleted around 2000. At first the site was mostly read by people in Scotland, by the end however our biggest source of page views became London and we were being read, and getting comments from the USA, Australia and New Zealand.

As the case neared it’s climax the bitterness and hatred the case was stirring up grew to new levels.  On an average day I would be dealing with comments and emails threatening me with being reported to the authorities, sued for defamation, jailed for contempt or just beaten to a pulp. On the other hand it was people posting encouragement  for my work that kept me going as the case dragged on into winter. I knew that if I made a factual mistake someone would spot it and post a comment correcting it. I didn’t have any sub-editors but had thousands of fact checkers.

The other thing I began to see was a change in the attitude towards me in the court itself. Not long into the case I had been taken out of court by the police and told I could not take notes as I was not a “bona fide journalist.” The Clerk of the court however spoke to them and told the police that I should be allowed to take notes and indeed later on in the case I did not even have to join the long queue up to get into the public gallery and was allowed to sit in the press section. Lawyers and journalists began to give me background information. One dark Friday evening, as I was leaving court,  a woman was berating a leading Television journalist for his coverage and on noticing me shouted “why can’t you be more like him, the blogger.” I hurried away. The broadcaster approached me on the Monday after told  me that I was “lucky” as “I only have two minutes to report the case every day you can write as much as you want.”


Courts are open to the public for a reason. Justice must not only be done but be seen to be done. Anyone, in print, on TV or online, has a duty to report a live criminal case responsibly. The stakes in court are high. Witnesses have their reputations on the line, accused persons their liberty.  However a criminal trial is the only high profile news event that is never broadcast on television, played on the radio or filmed for posterity. All that the public usually  have to rely on to make a judgement about the evidence given in court are short television reports or summaries in the newspapers.  In this case thousands of people were anxious to know the details of who had said what in court, and to give their opinions on the testimony and the evidence. It was noticeable that our readership always peaked after TV news bulletins, people seemed to want to find out more that the three minute reports they had just seen. They also wanted to express their opinions about the progress of the case, opinions that often seemed to be better informed that those of many of the pundits.

Of course most people will have got their news about the “Trial of the Decade,” as one tabloid dubbed it, through the newspapers and Television. The role of our site was to provide more specialist coverage to those who wanted more in depth coverage, which at around 13,000 people a day was a lot more than I ever expected. I know from discussions with people involved in the legal system that the courts in both England and Scotland are debating the benefits and possible pitfalls of blogs , twitter and facebook in the reporting of high profile cases. I’d like to think our site showed that this can be done responsibly and I would suggest that Here is a field where social media can add a very useful element to the public’s understanding of crime and punishment.

Ian Hamilton QC

Ian Hamilton QC has written an analysis of the current trial that I believe would be interest to many readers of this site. Mr Hamilton states that. in his opinion;


"The News of the World has at last won its vendetta against a left wing politician. It has done so with the connivance of the Lord Advocate. If at first you don’t succeed keep trying. Scottish justice has notched up another political miscarriage of justice alongside that of Al Megrahi and Muir of Huntershill. "


The full  article can be found here Here. For background, readers may also find Mr Hamilton's entry on wikipedia of interest. 

Update 

Scottish legal Blogger Lallands Peat Worrier has written a reply to Mr Hamilton's piece, this can be found Here

"The Rise and Lies of Tommy Sheridan"

We thought some readers from outside our fair land  might like to be made aware  that BBC Scotland broadcast a documentary  titled "The Rise and lies of Tommy Sheridan," on the night of the verdict.  Without commenting on the conclusions it draws I do think it is a useful piece giving readers the chance to see the main protagonists in the case being interviewed on camera and make their own jugement on their demeanor. 


You can find the documentary Here

The Verdict

As readers will be aware, yesterday afternoon the jury in the trial of Her Majesties Advocate vs Thomas Sheridan found Mr Sheridan guilty of perjury on a majority verdict (the actual numbers were not revealed in court) The jury did however delete two paragraphs of the remainder of the indictment and one section of one paragraph. Therefore "Mr Sheridan has, in the end, been convicted of five of the original nineteen charges he faced, while his wife Gail Sheridan has been acquitted. You can find a copy of that final indictment Here, the charges that were deleted were "n" and "N" which accused Mr Sheridan of committing perjury by denying he had a "sexual relationship with Anvar Begum Khan" between 1 January 1994 and 11 August 2003. The jury also removed the reference to Katrine Trolle visiting Mr Sheridan's home in Glasgow from charges "o" and "O"


After the verdict was read out and the judge allowed Mr Sheridan's bail to continue, Mr Sheridan's lawyer and Gail Sheridan made statements outside the court which can be viewed Here. During this there were shouts of "innocent" and "show trial" from supporters of the accused. The case has been continued until the 26th of January 2011 where Mr Sheridan will be sentenced. Lord Bracadale has told Mr Sheridan to "expect" a prison sentence.


I'll be reviewing what to do with the site over the next few weeks. I've also been asked by some people to set up a pay pal button as they would like to make a donation to help with the expenses incurred reporting the case and, after some thought I have decided to do that. I'l like to thank all of the people who have helped and encouraged me to keep reporting, the people in the queue who made sure I got in every day, and the clerk of the court for her kind assistance.