Leader of @ScotTories. (Past job: journalist & author) 🏴🇬🇧
Nov 6, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Lawyer Alistair Duff was appointed a sheriff in 2004, dispensing justice in Dundee.
Well connected to senior legal figures, he was then put in charge of training Scotland's judges as director of the 'world-leading' Judicial Institute for Scotland:
1/6 judiciary.scot/home/publicati…
So Duff trained judges - but he also sat in judgment of judges accused of misconduct.
In 2019, then First Minister Nicola Sturgeon appointed Duff to serve on the Fitness for Judicial Office Tribunal, which was created by Scotland's top judge:
The SNP MP fraud saga is a prime example of the often slow, costly and inefficient reality of Scottish justice - and the limitations of proceeds of crime law.
In 2015 Natalie McGarry was reported to police … but it took FOUR YEARS to convict her. She plead guilty.
Thread 🧵1/5
However, judges quashed her conviction, saying it was a miscarriage of justice and criticising the ‘inappropriate’ conduct of the sheriff and her then lawyer.
In 2022, she was put back in the dock and found guilty of stealing £25k from the SNP and another separatist group.
2/5
Apr 4, 2023 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
A thread 🧵
There's understandable anger across the UK at a child-rapist being spared prison by a Scottish court.
The 21-year-old will do community service which a top lawyer calls 'extraordinary' and a rape charity says is 'inexplicable'👇
1/7 bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotla…
However, this sentence was not a system glitch nor is it 'inexplicable'. It is entirely by design.
In January 2022, the Scottish Sentencing Council unveiled new guidelines not to jail under 25s because their brains are 'not fully mature' 👇
