Leader of @ScotTories. (Past job: journalist & author) 🏴🇬🇧
Sep 10 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
A shocking account of how a rape victim was arrested after her rapist faked his disappearance:
May 2022: Police Scotland issued this "missing person" appeal for James Clacher whose car, and a suicide note, were found at Loch Long in Arrochar, Argyll. 👇
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What police did NOT say was that Clacher was about to stand trial for the rape of two women who he met on dating apps.
One of the women (going by the name Elle to protect her anonymity) suspected Clacher of faking his disappearance/suicide.
She was 100 per cent right.
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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.
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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.
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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' 👇
