www.bobsmithart.com

 

 

Why Mrs Angiolini

did not deserve

a damehood

Kenneth Roy

 

Although it is tempting to dismiss the honours list as the ultimate exercise of human vanity – tempting because it so obviously is – the disposition of gongs at the top of the school tells us a great deal of interest about prevailing values and trends.
     'He's only in it for the k', said an acquaintance on the station platform at Troon one morning long ago. We were discussing the trajectory in public life of a man of self-destructive ambition known to both of us.
     'What's a k?', I asked innocently. In those days, the honours list was not one of my specialist subjects. Nor is it now. But at least I have learned that k stands for knighthood and that it is something they hand out to cause maximum offence to bus users, gay people and atheists, though not necessarily in that order. But let us leave the k for Mr Souter behind and turn to the d.
      D is for damehood. A d was awarded last weekend to the recently retired lord advocate Elish Angiolini for her 'services to the administration of justice in Scotland'. The constituency which this appointment is likely to offend includes many with a particular interest in the administration of justice in Scotland, some of whom may also be gay, atheist and bus users, probably in that order.
      I have been re-reading Lord Hamilton's letter, written on behalf of the bench of Scottish judges, to the then lord advocate, Mrs Angiolini, in September 2007 after the collapse of the World's End trial and her subsequent appearance before the Scottish Parliament in which she challenged the trial judge's decision and pretty well said that he had got it wrong. The lord justice general accused Mrs Angiolini of disrespecting a final decision of the High Court, undermining the confidence of judges, and interfering in the independence of the judiciary. He then released the letter to the press. Not bad going.
     How could any chief law officer walk away from such a public humiliation and magisterial rebuke? How could she when the debacle – for debacle it was – of this misconceived prosecution was entirely the fault of the Crown Office under her watch?
     Yet walk away she did; if not quite unscathed, surprisingly untroubled. Partly she had the support of the first minister, Alex Salmond, to thank for her survival. Mr Salmond has not always been so staunch in his support of the independence and quality of the Scottish judiciary as he has been in recent days. In 2007, he retained his lord advocate, but only by effectively dishing that bench of judges whose opinion he now values and wishes to protect from Lord Hope's annoying interjections.

 

     The adoration of the Scottish media also helped to secure her continuance in office against the odds. Most journalists, given a choice between the biggest of the wigs and a plain-spoken product of the Glasgow working-class, would unhesitatingly plump for the latter. Most did. Few public figures in Scotland have more rave reviews to their credit; perhaps only Sir Sean surpasses her.
     To the Guardian in 2006 she 'symbolises Scotland's aspirations'; the following year, Scotland on Sunday noted approvingly that 'Elish Angiolini was born to rattle cages'; while, in 2008, Steven Raeburn of The Firm (law magazine) remarked on her 'deft handling' of the World's End 'furore', adding that she was 'great fun over a glass of wine' and 'giggles if the joke is funny'. The last I heard, the lord advocate was no longer speaking to Mr Raeburn. Presumably the joke is no longer funny.
     But many of her media followers remained more or less devout to the end, despite her resort to the law to depress – should that be repress? – journalists' interest in the case of Hollie Greig, two words that require to be uttered with the greatest circumspection.
     Mrs Angiolini appeals to the media because of her impeccable roots and her common touch. She is the sort of law officer who makes a great fuss of saying that some criminals should be locked up for life. The prosecution of the Sheridans – Tommy going down, Gail saved from Cornton Vale at the last minute – probably did her no harm, either. But it was her handling of the Megrahi case which earned her the greatest respect from the popular press and, perhaps, the public at large.
     Her refusal to admit the possibility that a miscarriage of justice had occurred – even as the evidence piled up that an innocent man might have been sent to Greenock prison – confirmed for her media fans the stereotype of the don't-mess-with-me daughter of a Govan coal merchant, who had fought her way to the top and wasn't standing for any nonsense; far less any nuance.
     In overlooked truth, it was a debacle on a grander scale than the World's End. It was epic. For one reason or another, important evidence helpful to Megrahi was not available at the trial, just as important evidence helpful to Nat Fraser was not produced at his. The appeal process dragged on, so tortuously slowly that, inevitably, suspicions were aroused that the Crown Office was employing those well-known techniques of any establishment in a tight spot, obfuscation and delaying tactics.
     But again Elish Angiolini walked away with barely a mark. If anyone took the flak for the Megrahi fiasco it was the justice secretary Kenny MacAskill, whose release of the 'Lockerbie bomber' in August 2009 provoked howls of outrage (though not from this magazine). The Crown Office, meanwhile, having dragged its heels for so long, was able to blame Megrahi for abandoning a second appeal. Perfect.
     But it gets better still. The woman who, four short years ago, was accused by the lord justice general of making statements and insinuations which might have landed the rest of us in jail, now finds herself a dame of the British Empire. It is safe to predict that, when a short interval has elapsed, an opportunity will arise for her elevation to that same High Court bench whose supremacy she challenged, sitting alongside those same judges whose confidence she undermined.
      It seems that, in Scotland, fairy tales still happen.

Kenneth Roy is editor of the Scottish Review