Alex Salmond has arrived at the High Court in Edinburgh for the second day of his trial. Should get under way at about 10.
Here’s the thread of yesterday’s proceedings - expecting Crown to pick up where they left off with Woman H, before the defence have an opportunity to cross-examine
Alex Salmond has taken his place in court, the jury are settled, Lady Dorrian is on the bench and we’re underway. Alex Prentice QC resumes Crown questioning of Woman H, who Alex Salmond is accused of sexually assaulting and attempting to rape.
Woman H says she was due to go to a football event with Alex Salmond the day after the alleged attempted rape, but “I didn’t want to go, I felt like I was going to throw up. I was distressed and didn’t want to be around him.”
Jury being shown an email Woman H sent to a civil servant about not attending the event, saying she was “going to have to cancel” because she had hurt her arm the previous week; “my arm is killing me and all swollen” - adds “last night’s dinner went well anyway”
Woman H signed off her email with apologies to the FM (for cancelling); she says she didn’t mention the alleged incident because she was “humiliated” and “didn’t process what happened for a long time”. Alex Salmond then spoke to her on the phone encouraging her to change her mind
Woman H says she didn’t speak out about the full details of the alleged incident until she spoke to police in 2018. She once asked a colleague if anything had ever happened to them to figure out if it was a “one off”, a “drunken mistake due to the pressure of the campaign”.
Woman H says she was trying to find out if there was a process in the SNP for complaining, but wanted to feel “secure” about it as “the first minister was a very powerful man and I didn’t want to get on the wrong side of him”
Court examining text messages between Woman H and someone she describes a staff member at SNP HQ, in late 2017. She was asking about ways to “confidentially discuss sexual misconduct”, involving an “ex parliamentarian”.
Woman H says she “was trying to figure out what the party was putting in place in context of #MeToo”; she told party about “the top line” but not “explicit detail”, she wanted it on Alex Salmond’s file in case something happened to someone else, or if he ever sought office again
Woman H says she “formalised things” in summer 2018, speaking to a solicitor so that “an anonymous complaint could be made to the party and put on record”. She was “coming to terms slowly with what happened”.
Court hearing text from Woman H following Daily Record story on complaints against Alex Salmond in 2018 - “in a selfish way details today make me almost feel relieved it wasn’t just me and I’m not stupid” - text says it was a “systemic pattern”
Alex Prentice is finished questioning Woman H, and Shelagh McCall QC is now going to cross examine for the defence.
Shelagh McCall is going over Woman H’s work with Alex Salmond around the Yes campaign, and her time at and access to Bute House. She shifted between several roles, but says “it didn’t really matter where your desk was”
Woman H being asked about “disquiet” within the Yes campaign and “personnel issues”; she says “I felt I was being bullied”. Asked if she met with Alex Salmond to discuss this, “a lot of us tried to flag our issues, a lot of us tried to speak to him about our concerns”
Woman H now being asked about her access to Bute House; did she go in past the security desk? Did she have to sign in? “Not really. Occasionally I might have done but a lot of the time I was with the first minister or key staff” (and thus didn’t sign in)
Court taking a short mid morning break.
Court back in session. Shelagh McCall asking about Woman H trying to become an SNP candidate, and the party’s vetting and selection process. (fyi, probably going to have to skip over a lot of details here due to risk of jigsaw identification)
Court looking at texts between Woman H and Tasmina Ahmed Sheik, where H appears to ask if “Alex will be ok” with her becoming a candidate, saying it “it would be great to be working with him again”. She says she was “taking the temperature”
Shelagh McCall asks if Woman H dropped out of selection process because she didn’t get Alex Salmond’s endorsement; “I didn’t ask for it”, she replies. Further texts appear to discuss “absolute chaos” in the selection process
Shelagh McCall now asking if Woman H asked Alex Salmond to attend a fundraiser event in 2017; court shown email from her to him. She says it wasn’t her idea. Asked if she thought she could get him to attend she says she “couldn’t be bothered”, “but sent the email out of courtesy”
Shelagh McCall moves back to Woman H’s contact with the SNP about making an anonymous complaint; she got a reply saying “we’ll sit on that and hope we never need to deploy it”
Asked about the party “sitting on it”, Woman H says “I wanted it to be known in the party so it could become a vetting issue and they could deal with it at whatever stage they saw fit. For vetting, for future staff, for party conduct.”
Shelagh McCall asks if anyone encouraged Woman H to speak to the police; “nobody cheerleader me to to do this, I’ve done this off my own back. This isn’t fun, I’d rather not do this” She says she spoke to another complainer about the “process” but “I made this decision on my own”
Shelagh McCall asking Woman H if she spoke to another complainer, Woman J, as well as Woman G (mentioned in last tweet). She says she was in “regular contact” with J - court now examining texts between them apparently discussing “the AS stuff”
Text from Woman H to Woman J says she is “mulling” what they call “the AS stuff”, appears to say “I have a plan and means we can be anonymous but see strong repercussions”.
Woman H says she was “bricking it” about Alex Salmond’s response, but “felt I was becoming more secure that the process could be confidential and anonymous”. She says the “repercussions” mentioned in text were the police and party taking action over “misconduct”.
Shelagh McCall now asking if Woman H was in contact with another complainer, Woman A. “I remember sending her a text message off the back of the Daily Record story”. Was A doing a “ring round”? H says this was “due diligence”
Shelagh McCall asks why Woman H spoke to Woman A. “There was a police investigation...but I didn’t know the full detail of this, I’ve never done this before. This was new to me, I was finding my feet.” Did Woman A encourage her to speak to the police? “No.”
After examining some photos of Woman H and Alex Salmond with various celebrities at Bute House dinners, court breaks for lunch
And we’re back for the afternoon session at the High Court, after a brief legal debate on an “administrative matter”. Cross examination of Woman H by defence counsel Shelagh McCall QC continues.
Shelagh McCall asking Woman H about the first alleged incident at Bute House. Was she upset? “I was shocked”. Why did she then bring it up again later? “I wanted to make sure it didn’t happen again.”
Shelagh McCall asks why Woman H put herself in a position for this to happen again? “I had genuinely thought it could have been a one off. I wanted to ensure that he knew I didn’t want it to happen again.”
Shelagh McCall asks, isn’t it the truth that this incident simply didn’t happen? Woman H says “I wish it wasn’t true, but that’s not the case.”
Shelagh McCall runs through a list of dates when she says Alex Salmond was not at Bute House that month; “what about the dates in between?” asks Woman H. Jury now examining first minister’s diary for that month.
This concerns the charge where Alex Salmond has lodged a special defence of alibi - court currently going over various diary entries for the month in question, including dinners, drinks receptions, award dos, car journeys etc.
Asked about attendance at Bute House dinners, Woman H says the chefs there called them “loaves and fishes” dinners as extra diners would be added - “it regularly went off piste about who was meant to be there”
“Some of the stuff in the diary will have happened and some of it won’t. That’s the nature of the beast,” says Woman H. First minister also had a calendar which would be more contemporaneous but “I wasn’t privy to that information”
Shelagh McCall says there doesn’t seem to be any dinner at which woman H was present; so isn’t it true there was no incident with Mr Salmond that month? Woman H says “absolutely not - just because there isn’t a dinner doesn’t mean I wasn’t there...I was there regularly for work.”
Moving to the second alleged incident (the attempted rape), Shelagh McCall is going through transcript of Woman H’s police interview. H says “this was my first recall of the event, it was my first time saying out loud what had happened to me.”
