6. Crime fiction has
a lot to answer for...
Perry Mason seems to have had quite a disturbing on people of
a certain generation!
Having in my own lifetime formally studied certain aspects of
the law, served for a short time as a special constable, been press observer,
witness, juror and even taught media law in a Scottish college... The very little
I can tell you first hand is that a court of criminal law, once rolling and in
motion, runs on rails as solid and inflexible as those that guide The Flying
Scotsman to its destination. – Not
without its points and branches, not without steering or brakes or for that
matter scenery that is sometimes colourful and dramatic. – But the ‘judge’ is
there to ensure that big train keeps on rolling and does not leave the rails;
that it sticks to the timetable and the route and that it follows the rules of
the railway to branch between one of two platforms... Guilty or not guilty.
As critical as I am of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal
Service (COPFS) under Elish Angiolini and indeed more recently under Frank
Mulholland; it needs to be understood and acknowledged that Robert Green has
played straight into whatever devious agenda was behind his ridiculous
persecution. Note that I do not assert the view here that our courts universally
‘run right’, are beyond corruption or even that they are not routinely abused
by those within to progress the interests of ‘old boy’ and possibly other more
nefarious networks. Nor do I say that Green’s prosecution was justified. I
simply seek to illuminate the ridiculous folly of turning up to the ‘chess
match’ that is a court of law with tennis racquet, cricket ball and football
boots...
Courts are not forums where every other crime under the sun divergent
from the charge in hand might be exposed and instantly examined; nor are they
street-corner soapboxes.
They are a place and event where a disciplined and
single-minded process takes place; a specific charge or charges is put to the
test and examined. Evidence presented either halts that process in its tracks
or, more usually, informs what platform it arrives at. Matters that are separate and irrelevant are – must be as
part of the process - dismissed as such with respect to the case in hand. The notion that some tiny sliver of
information causes the penny to drop and the wheels of justice to spin swiftly
into motion wheeling in some odd direction is risible. Courts just don’t work
that way.
Hollywood-style sleuthery is also a fantasy.
In reality there are no
laudanum-fuelled, Holmesian, sleuths working away in their home-laboratories to
whom the Police will turn in swooning (or grudging) admiration when they
unearth the one spark of evidence that all of conventional forensic and
criminal science missed... Oh; there
might be some who imagine themselves such. But think more weed-addled,
beanie-hatted, angry-at-the world, windmill-tilting disenfranchised and
deluded.
There is no role
for the amateur in criminal detective work; it is not a game or a hobby.
The reality of a police investigation is that
it’s a discipline which aims to gather evidence in a professional manner. It’s
almost-never ‘as seen on TV’. The reality of Police work would simply be too
boring! It’s a cold, clinical forensic process; the Latin forēnsis, meaning "of or before the
forum." With both the art and
science of the task being to construct a case that is irrefutable by any
rational means; a case, in other words, that is presented to the court as being
beyond any reasonable doubt.
For clarity – such a case is not constructed by selectively
tugging at a few loose threads and knitting them into a rough-fitting
straightjacket. The truth is the truth, lies are lies, these things are not
interchangeable, and if it’s the truth you seek it’s the truth you must gather
and adhere to… No matter how inconvenient.
********
Much is made of the martyrdom of Robert Green in respect of
him ‘doing jail time’ in relation to the Hollie Greig case. And I will be clear that I do find his
treatment at the hands of the Scottish authorities deeply troubling. Reputedly, Green’s conviction for Breach Of
the Peace was the most expensive case of its type in Scottish legal history,
and I do question the motivation behind it, concluding that it is an action
which contributes to the disrepute of the COPFS and the Scottish justice
system.
However – Robert Green and his cohorts are lying to the public about his conviction...
Green did not go to
jail simply for handing out leaflets or for campaigning against sex abuse, as
is often promoted. Indeed I have no difficulty in saying that this is one of
the most offensive affronts to the intelligence of the general public promoted
by Green. That man did not go to jail
because he campaigned in the cause of ‘justice for Hollie’ or anyone else for
that matter. Notions that he was gaoled for merely handing out leaflets or
otherwise exercising the right to ‘freedom of speech’ are complete and utter
tripe – and those promoting that myth are generally aware of the gross untruth
they’re pushing.
The crown brought a simple claim to bear against Robert
Green…
They charged that in a certain neighbourhood of Aberdeen he
did utter documents which contained allegations that caused people to fear that
they were living amongst a group of predatory paedophiles and that their
children and grandchildren were in danger from that group. The prosecution proved that this material had frightened
people; quite simply – an ordinary tradesman took the stand and testified that he had been frightened. That was enough.
Robert Green offered not one sliver of an argument in dispute of that proof, it
was an open and shut case save for the circus Green tried to turn his trial
into…
Robert Green is largely the author of his own downfall…
Central to the allegations contained in the material he sent
our for instance is the notion that this paedophile ring included a serving
Sheriff and a named senior Police Officer. It was said that much of the abuse
happened at the Sheriff’s sister’s house and names were ascribed to both she
and her husband; also an alleged abuser…
Had Robert Green been half the ‘Journalist and Broadcaster’
as well as ‘Lay Legal Adviser’ he is often (self!) promoted as, he would have
made some simple checks... It takes about
forty five minutes of simply going through public records to establish that Sheriff
Graeme Buchanan has no sister nor even sister-in-law that might fit the
bill. Therefore there is no house where
the alleged abuse could have taken place. Similarly, a few simple searches
establish that the (late) ‘senior Police Officer’ Terry Major, in reality never
in his life held a warrant card… There is no Jack Buchanan, No Evelyn
Buchanan… The ages of the alleged
co-abused aren’t consistent with Anne’s tale…
These are not moot points....
The story simply does not ‘stand up’!
What Robert Green put through people’s doors was a load of
complete and utter bollocks that scared the living daylights out of them. That,
quite simply was the case that the crown brought against him; and
extraordinarily, Green did nothing to dispute that case…
But please don’t think for a moment I believe the crown were at all justified in
doing this, these were, in my view,
trumped up charges…
For me the material Green distributed was more defamatory
than anything else. And the Sheriff named, Graham Buchanan was completely
justified in seeking an interdict against Green. Buchanan, quite properly, did
this from his own pocket and was fully justified in seeking to recover the cost
of doing so from Green. As a precursor to a defamation action – or
alternatively a mechanism whereby if Green were to defame Buchanan again he
would be held in contempt - this was absolutely the right and proper course of
action to take.
It’s from here though that the crown steps in… And matters
take a disreputable turn.
********
Sadly, one of the features of the Scottish legal system is
that it has, particularly over the
past twenty or so years, become something that has more to do with the playing
of Poker than the practice of law and the administration of justice. In my view
the motivations behind the crown’s intervention were as questionable as the
proverbial four-pound note! It strikes me that using the ‘Breach of the Peace’
route was a shabby contrivance and one that calls the entire justice system
into disrepute at that; an abuse of process in other words…
Was the motivation behind this apparent abuse of process
merely to save one of their own – Sheriff Buchanan for instance – the cost of a
defamation action against a man with no assets to speak of? Bearing in mind the public purse was reputedly
emptied to the tune of some half-a-million pounds, protecting the fat-wallet of
some one of their cronies does not strike me as in the interests of the public
and is in my view inherently corrupt.
Or was the motivation more sinister?
Again I’ll raise the spectre of Greg Lance-Watkins and point
out that it was he who not only made the substantial publication in the first
place, but continued to maintain (as he does to this day) a blog containing
both illegal and defamatory material. – It’s irrelevant that Watkins was by
this stage back-pedalling – Green had no control over that material at any
time. In fact it took a team of ‘pro-Hollie’ hackers, working to protect Green,
to eventually break into that blog and take it down. A gesture that was to
prove futile as Watkins merely re-posted the offending material elsewhere…
I’ll remind readers that – in respect of the naming of
Hollie’s alleged co-abused - Watkins has been reported to the police several
times by several different people. Both Police Scotland and Watkins’ local
force point-blank refuse to act…
A defamation action raised by any one of those named would
need to visit the issue of WHO exactly was responsible for the defamatory publication. - And the strangely-protected Greg Lance Watkins is implicated in that...
Are there questions that might have been raised in the course
of a defamation action that might have inconvenienced or embarrassed some ‘high
ranker’? Or even led to them facing a serious criminal investigation?
As much as the extended allegations in this
case are undoubtedly a fabrication; what of the issues at the core of the
matter?
I do not doubt for a second that
a defamation action would succeed against Green and/or Watkins. But let’s remember that any
defence which might be constructed would require drilling seriously into the core
allegations. And that any facts or findings presented in the course of that
action would then become a matter of public record.
Is this something someone couldn’t risk?
Given the desperation with which certain parties have sought
to deflect from those core allegations I am inclined to form the opinion that
there may well be matters that might cause ‘a can of worms’ to open !
There is something of an irony in a man with serious convictions for firearms
offences and violence, paired to an obsession with the dark and perverse calling
anyone else a “criminal”.
Extraordinarily, and contrary to what Greg Lance-Watkins and
his cabal would have you imagine, it hasn’t actually been proved in court that
Green is a liar! - Although one would
need to concede that he is…
It hasn’t actually been proved in court that Anne
Greig’s extended allegations are a complete fabrication… Although one would need to concede that they
are just that …
It hasn’t actually been
proved in court that the Hollie Greig case is, in its entirety, a hoax – And, actually,
it isn’t!
All they proved was
that Robert Green scared people; he breached their peace…
And the troubling questions that do arise from the Hollie Greig case remain as extant as ever...
