Will self publicist Alex Salmond call a summit of the legal bigwigs after the shameful verdict in the trial of Hearts thug John Wilson for his televised attack on Neil Lennon?
The decision to press for a trendy charge of sectarian aggravation rather than straightforward assault backfired with the jury opting for the not proven get-out.
In February with an election looming Jambo Salmond summoned Celtic, Rangers and the media to the greater Scottish council at Holyrood to express his horror at three Rangers players being sent off in a Scottish Cup defeat from Celtic.
A brave new world was promised but the rushed legislation was kicked into touch with Salmond suddenly taking a back seat with the flack flying.
Yesterday’s verdict was initially greeted with shock by Celtic supporters before the realisation set in that an attack on the Irish manager of Celtic wouldn’t unduly disturb an Edinburgh audience.
The Celtic manager had been forced to give evidence in court on the assault as Wilson was given a sympathetic hearing in court.
Wilson admitted to his guilt over the assault, wrote a letter of apology to Lennon but will only be sentenced for breech of the peace!
After the verdict leading QC Paul McBride slammed the verdict saying: “What does that say about this country?
“It sends out signals to thugs that they can get away with it. The whole world saw the video of the incident.
“The whole world knows the accused wrote a letter of apology to Lennon. The whole world heard his own counsel admit an attack in court and now the whole world has seen the jury let him off.
“It is a very dark day for Scottish justice and is a terrible message about how this country is seen by the rest of the world.
“I’ve even had emails from people in America who saw this unfold on the telly and now they’re asking how this man could possibly get off.”
During Celtic’s pre-season preparations Lennon was interviewed on Australian and Irish television about the assault he suffered at Tynecastle.
As Salmond enjoys his tax-payer funded summer holiday hoping the verdict blows over the truth about Scottish justice will be transmitted around the world.
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i’m so angry i could weep.
surely, something can be done about this farce of a decision?
is there no chance of redress through neil taking a private civil action route to get justice?
keep the faith, if it can happen to neil then what chance of any of us in a scottish court.
Joe you are wrong on your point that it was Alex Salmond who summond Celtic and Rangers to a summit, this was the work of the chief constable of Strathclyde who reacted in typical knee jerk reaction to a situation where the referee appeared to lose control.
This verdict is outrageous, but they went after the sectarian charge and couldn’t then convict him with a lesser charge of assault.
The new legislation was not rushed through, after debating it’s merits in parliament, and will have been scruitinised to try and get it right.
It does not matter that it was a charge based on it being a sectarian motivated attack he should have been convicted,2 independant witnesses heard him use the term fenian whilst attacking lennon, in any other case that would be enough to make the sectarian charge a stick on, absolutely sickening verdict and scotland is showing its true colours.
I agree he should have been convicted as everyone in the ground and those watching on the television could clearly see that he assaulted Neil, but deals are done between the prosecution,defence and judge as to which charges will be levied against the perpetraitor of the criminal act, and the crown obviously went for the sectarian charge.
As for the witnesses, I believe it was only one guy(the steward) who heard him shouting and it then came down to one mans word against anothers.
I thought it was tynecastle security manager Peter Croy and another steward that heard it, also Lennon himself? I could be wrong, plus the sectarian element and the actual assault are separate, an assault isn’t just dismissed because the motive can’t be proven, if that was true nobody would be convicted of assault, that’s a ridiculous notion.
I am as angry about this verdict as any right minded celtic fan, but please get your facts right and stop peddling propaganda. Alex salmond did not summone anyone. It was the chief of strathclydes finest.
It may have been Strathclyde Police that summoned the summit, I don’t know, but it was hosted at Holyrood with Salmond taking centre stage and revelling in being seen to do something.
Lads, regardless of who Did the actual summoning, the principle Joe is trying to get across is that salmond was the one taking centre stage so people would think he was doing something! shameful decision.
If Alex Salmond had refused to attend the summit brought about at the insistence of the chief constable you would be saying ‘Alex Salmond and the SNP don’t want to do anything about sectarian issues in Scotland’.
He was asked to chair the summit as he would be an impartial observer/contributer with no ties to either of the old firm.
I believe he is trying to do something about religiously divided Scotland as he has his countries intrests at heart, whereas the other political parties all wrapped up in the union flag are more interested in us serving them.
Chief Constables do not have the authority to call a government summit, and to think it wasn’t a political agenda because of the upcoming elections at the time is naive, it was obviously orchestrated by Salmond.
You are getting bogged down in semantics here, the chief constable asked the First Minister to chair the meeting, as for your statement about the meeting ‘obviously orchestrated’ by Salmond who is being naive now. What is clear, is he would have been dammned if he did and dammened if he didn’t attend.
Guys, does it really matter who called the summit ?
I missed that cup replay match as I was in Thailand but even from looking online now and again, Alex Salmond wasn’t far away from the headlines.
Since this verdict, I’ve heard nothing from him. If he was interested in clearing up football hooliganism, he would be as vocal now as he was after ‘that’ old firm match.
Point is that this scum bag getting away with his attack on Lennon is wrong, regardless of who made the decision.
Scotland the new south Africa proven once again.
bhoylondon67, it was Peter Croy (head steward) that heard the shouting and it was only his testimony taken at the court case against Wilson.
As Joe states in his second paragraph the crown prosecution went for a charge of sectarian provoked assault rather than the lesser charge of assault, and it was the jury who let Wilson off (get out of jail). I am as bewildered as yourself, as to how they came to their conclusion and took this lowlife’s word against the tynecastle head of security.
It doesn’t matter, if the sectarian charge couldn’t be proven the assault charge would still stand in a fair trial, you don’t dismiss an assault case because you can’t prove a motive when the video evidence clearly shows the assault and it is witnessed by thousands of people including police officers, it’s clearly a case of a bigoted jury embarrassing the entire country by openly discriminating against a high profile catholic, Scotland should be disgusted and ashamed, but sadly it probably wont be.
(The judge advised the jury on it’s options when the sectarian charge wasn’t proven which would include the option of an assault charge still standing)
‘In his closing speech, defence advocate David Nicolson had told the jury that Wilson had earlier been willing to plead guilty to breach of the peace and assault under deletion of making a sectarian remark and being aggravated by religious prejudice, but the Crown had not accepted his plea’.
The jury then dismissed the assault as not proven; he was being tried on two offences and was found guilty of the breach of the peace.
I agree with you that the jury’s decision stinks, but I don’t agree that it shames Scotland; only the intolerant amongst us who can’t live beside another person of different race/religion should be ashamed.
Thats ridiculous, you don’t need to plead guilty to be convicted of a crime or charged with a crime. Scotland should be ashamed, although not everyone is a racist bigot, many, far too many people accept it a the norm and refuse to confront or even acknowledge the problems, when Celtic fans threw bananas at a black player i was ashamed and i wasn’t there or involved, i was ashamed so many in our support were accepting of that vile behaviour, thank God we acknowledged and accepted responsibility as a whole and such things will never happen on such a scale again because the majority of decent Tims stood up and were counted, when Lennon was targetted with bombs and bullets very few people in Scotland condemned it. Scotland should be ashamed, and if it’s not things will get far worse before they get better.
An apalling decision to return a ‘not proven’ verdict and there will be any number of debates flying around this, however i believe that there needs to be more questions raised around the following:
Who in the prosecution service set the charges
Why was the charge listed as sectarian in nature
What levels of evidence of sectarian abuse were there prior to the charge being made
What, if any influence, did the politians have in setting the charge
One other thing to remember, is that this charge was raised without the change to the law proposed by the SNP. It beggers the question why we need to change the law to include sectarian elements when charges can already be brought within this heading, the only issue being that the evidence needs to be there.
Hail Hail
Mon the Hoops
Keep the Faith
Just Can’t get enough
!!!!!!
Don’t get drawn into the false notion the case could only stand if it was classed as sectarian, the assault charge would still be an option for prosecution.
Please give the scottish government time to react. They are not a conservative government which would react without thinking. They are very sensible and will do the right things when needed.
But please consider this: I’m not trying to sound stupid here, I really would suggest the celtic community should arrange a protest in front of the Scottish parliament. Too much has happened now and too little done. In fact, with this decision it has got worse.
I’m sure we would get huge support for this.
I hand it over to those who are able to arrange it. Happy to help where I can.
Let’s show our disgust to the MSP’s that this injustice can happen. And see who of the MSP’s actually cares and those who just want to sun in the spotlight!
I read a year or so ago about how fanatical SNP activists are online, mainly to counter the negative stories run by the Herald and the Scotsman.
Looks like a few of them have found this article.
The rushed legislation that was intended for the start of the season hit the buffers.
I can’t imagine Celtic fans wanting to arrange a protest at the Scottish ‘Parliament’ who can really be bothered by glorified councillors that are unable to find work in the real world?
Apathy rules at the ballot box but if wee Eck has an independence referendum lined up he’ll have quite a job on his hands convincing people about the merits of the best wee country in the world- puke.
I heard that Colonel Gadafi is ready to surrender but only if he can be tried by an Edinburgh jury.
So informing you of inaccuracies in your blog and not being ashamed to be Scottish makes me a ‘fanatical SNP activist’, that would be funny if it wasn’t so sad to see.
I have read your blog a few times, being forwarded to it from another site called Newsnow and this was the first time I have contributed to any of your stories, and find it dismaying that because I don’t fall in line with your political beliefs, I am somehow a fanatic.
I only wanted to correct your false statement about the old firm summit.
Your statements about the Scottish parliament and voter apathy are exactly what the unionist parties are aiming for, it lets them keep a hold over the conditioned peoples of this country and Ireland, whilst ensuring they remain divided through religion.
‘The best wee country in the world puke’ was vomited forth by Jack McConnell.
Nobody is going to believe a police chief constable called a government summit because it’s obviously a complete and utter lie.
If that fits into your nice, cosy view of things then who am I to deny you the delusions you have.
The chief constable asked him to chair a summit, it wasn’t a government summit.The following was taken from a BBC report of the fallout from the ‘Shame Game’.
Holyrood questions
The fallout from the game prompted Strathclyde Police Chief Constable Stephen House to call Mr Salmond and write to the Scottish government asking for a summit to address disorder issues surrounding the fixture.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-12631956
This has now taken the original blog so far off topic and I can only repeat that it was a shocking verdict returned by a suspect jury.
Ok then Kenny M, you believe it wasn’t a government summit and that Salmond had nothing to do with apart from chairing it despite constant unchallenged reporting at the time stating Salmond had called an old firm summit, he is distancing himself from it now because nothing has been done and the SFA and courts are making his summit look pathetic every time they are dealing with old firm issues by openly favouring Rangers, the summit was coincidentally called for when an election was looming.
Incidentally it was a RANGERS shame game, Celtics behaviour was impeccable apart from Lennon having words with sneaky mccoist, despite severe provocation throughout, and which incidentally only 1 person was punished for, surprise, surprise it was Mr Lennon.
Rangers tax hearing will be in an Edinburgh court, the tax man need not turn up.
I have a feeling that Celtic fans have taken all they are going to take, and trouble is not far away!
Even if poor wee Eck had his arm twisted into appearing to host the ‘shame game’ summit I think many Celtic supporters opinion of the SNP will be shaped by Kenny MacAskill’s delight and pleasure at the behaviour of supporters at the League Cup Final in March.
I hold Salmond and MacAskill in the same category as David Cameron and the Liberal guy, Gordon Brown and Tony Blair. All men driven by conviction to ensure as comfortable a life after politics for themselves as possible with principles cast aside many years ago.
I was surprised MacAskill made those comments too, and hoped in hindsight he would have retracted them, but to no avail.
I believe he shot himself in the foot that day, and as you say alienated himself from some of the Celtic support.
Your opinion of Salmond is yours to make, but amongst those unionist polititians he is the only one to have Scotlands interests at heart, in my opinion.
Unfortunately Paul McBride’s serve only one purpose, Paul McBride.
Could he not for example not have used his ‘top scottish lawyer’ expertise to try and explain, rationally, why a jury might have passed such a verdict? Instead of a populist rant signifying nothing?
Its pretty simple to offer a likely explanation, so long as you are not riven to the core with an ‘everyone is agin us’ prejudice. How about, for example, they made the mistake of thinking they could not drop the aggravation element of the assault charge. Alternatively they could of course just not have liked the prosecutor or the presentation of the case, and sympathised instead with the accused.
You’ll only believe differently if you already believe they are all out to get us, whoever ‘they’ are. Oh, of course, its everyone who’s not a Catholic? Or is it everyone who’s not a Celtic fan? Or are we bigoted enough to assume thats the same thing as only Catholics can be Celtic fans?
My view is that the crux of the matter is in the direction given to the jury by the Sheriff.
If the”top Scottish lawyer” is correct, and surely he is, the Sectarian aspect of the charge could have been dropped by the jury if they saw fit and the charge of (mere) assault then considered separately.
Whilst I dont share your complete dislike of McBride, perhaps it is significant that none of the Establishment has questioned the Sheriff’s role in proceedings.