Summer on Mull (3)

 

Photograph by Islay McLeod

 

 

 

Why has Tommy

Sheridan not been

granted an appeal?

Jim Monaghan

News that judges had decided to reject Tommy Sheridan's appeal was, as seems to be the norm these days, leaked directly to the press, who quoted the decision as being because the conviction was 'unarguable'.
     They are not far from the truth. Sheridan's defence lawyers were not seeking to present their appeal now, they were hoping to be granted time to appeal, to await the outcome of the various investigations that are currently ongoing. The appeal, at the moment, is unarguable from a defence point of view because, until evidence that has been withheld from it is available, it will not know exactly on what evidence the appeal would be based.
     Strathclyde Police is investigating possible perjury by News International (NI) employees when giving evidence in last year's trial. It is also investigating potential breaches of data protection laws. The Crown's spin-doctors have been quick to rule out any connection between these investigations and the evidence that convicted Sheridan. It is hard to imagine how they could be confident that it would be impossible to turn up evidence in the new investigations that could have altered a jury's decision.
     In the trial, the News of the World's Scottish editor, Bob Bird, stated that emails the defence had asked for had been destroyed or lost during transfer to a storage facility in Mumbai. Since then, Tom Watson MP has established that this was not correct; the emails in question were still in the UK, and had not been lost or destroyed. Bird later apologised in the press for misleading the court.
     The defence team has not, as yet, received the emails in question. As it wants to see all correspondence between the NoW and police and witnesses, it is impossible, even ludicrous, to rule out the possibility that this correspondence contains evidence that could have influenced the jury's decision.
     Bird gave evidence in court regarding payments to witnesses against Sheridan. One of these witnesses, Anvar Khan, was key to the conviction of Sheridan, being one of those who claimed to have visited a swingers' party. As this witness changed her evidence, any correspondence between her, NoW and other witnesses could be key to any appeal. Bob Bird, in an email produced by the defence at the trial, offered Khan a chance to 'double your dosh' when discussing the story. He also gave evidence on potential payments to other witnesses. The other witnesses who claim they visited the party with Sheridan both admitted to being offered cash from NoW although they denied receiving payments.

 

     Bird also stated that another NoW employee, Douglas Wight, had only used a private investigator 10 times. The defence claimed Wight had used the private investigator, Steve Whittamore, more than 70 times. Whittamore has been convicted of illegally obtaining information.
     Andy Coulson, NoW editor at the time, was directly involved in the purchase of the McNeilage tape, flying to Glasgow to make the final arrangements and negotiating the price down from 250k to 200k. This tape purports to be Sheridan's voice, confessing to making a confession at a meeting in 2004. This is the crucial piece of evidence. At the libel proof in 2006 the same people gave evidence about this meeting and a jury found in Sheridan's favour. The tape swung that evidence the other way. It has around 18 minutes of footage deleted from the end. Without details of the correspondence on this tape it is, again, impossible to rule out the existence of evidence that could have led to a different jury decision. When was the last section deleted and by whom? We cannot know until the defence has been given access to all the evidence and/or the police carry out a full investigation.
     Can we expect the police to carry out as full and rigorous investigation into the NoW evidence in this case as they did following Sheridan's historic victory in the defamation case? Will we see dramatic raids on offices and homes, thousands of police hours, up to 22 officers at a time, over a period of years, going into every available avenue?
     It is to be hoped that Strathclyde will at least be more thorough than Lothian and Borders Police were in investigating NoW. When a 'viable listening device' was discovered in Sheridan's car in 2007, it emerged in evidence that police hadn't questioned anyone from NoW, despite the tip-off that led to its discovery pointing the finger at that newspaper.
     The court's decision seems unusual and unreasonable when investigations into these questions are going on. It is also at odds with a previous related decision. In 2006, following the libel trial, NoW launched an appeal against the jury's decision. As a perjury investigation was under way, the court decided it would be better to delay this appeal until the perjury investigation and subsequent trial were completed. Five years later, this appeal still has not been heard. Why isn't Sheridan’s appeal treated in the same way?
     There have been too many instances of the authorities seeming to act differently against Sheridan than against NoW. Until a full, separate, Scottish investigation is launched into the relationship between our own forces and the media (in particular NI) I fear we might never get to the bottom of this saga.
     Meanwhile, the defence will now try other avenues of appeal. This leaves all of us looking forward to the possibility of another rant from Alex Salmond when the UK Supreme Court sends the Scottish justice system home – to think again.

 

Jim Monaghan is a writer and poet who is working on a book about the Sheridan case. He worked as a researcher for Tommy Sheridan and Rosemary Byrne in the Scottish Parliament