A poetic
consideration
of Hell
John Cameron
Soft touch Britain?
When he gave a party,
the doctor’s guests
collapsed under the table
The Cafe 2
Robert Calder
and Alastair Stewart
Bob Smith
Islay’s daily pic
CalMac passenger
Oban pier
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Alex Salmond
and the
Nat Fraser case
Rings of truth: part 1
Kenneth Roy
Why was the corroborated testimony of the two police officers only disclosed eight years after Arlene Fraser’s disappearance and their visit to the house? If Fraser had not appealed, would it ever have been known?
The Crown Office then issued a statement that the lord advocate regarded it as a ‘matter of serious concern’ that this evidence had not been made available to the defence. Two investigators appointed by the Crown Office interviewed the advocate-depute who took the case (he is now a Court of Session judge). He said he thought at an early stage in his involvement that the rings were the ‘key piece of evidence’ and that the information in PC Lynch’s precognition was so inconsistent with his own view of the case that, if it had come to light during the trial, the Crown would have abandoned the prosecution.
Although, in the light of this frank acknowledgement, Fraser’s legal team seemed to be on exceptionally strong ground, his appeal was thrown out in May 2008. He was left with an application to the judicial committee of the Privy Council (subsequently the UK Supreme Court) as his last hope, pleading that the conduct of the case had breached his human rights. A panel of judges chaired by Lord Hope agreed last week that Fraser’s right to a fair trial had been prejudiced and quashed the conviction. It was this judgement from London which provoked Alex Salmond into his defence of the integrity of the Scottish legal system and is propelling his determination to prevent the UK Supreme Court from hearing such appeals in future.
But, based on the bizarre facts of this case, how justified is the first minister’s confidence in the Scottish legal system?
There are two main issues.
The first is the failure of the Crown to disclose information given to one of its officers six months before the trial – information which, in the words of Lord Hope, it ‘knew or should have known’ and which flatly contradicted the ‘key piece of evidence’ on which the case turned. How on earth did this failure come about? Why was the corroborated testimony of the two police officers only disclosed eight years after Arlene Fraser’s disappearance and their visit to the house? If Fraser had not appealed, would it ever have been known?
The second is the dismissal of this corroborated testimony – the ‘cornerstone’ of the prosecution case – by the Court of Appeal. The senior judge hearing the appeal said he was ‘not persuaded’ that the recollections of the two officers could be regarded as reliable. Since their evidence had never been tested in court, what exactly was the basis for this lack of confidence in their recollections?
Point-by-point, in a judgement of clinical precision, Lord Hope demolished the Court of Appeal’s reasoning. ‘The fact is,’ he wrote, ‘that the Crown chose to present the case at the trial in a way that it would not have chosen to do if it had been aware at the time of the trial that there was evidence that the rings were in the house within hours of Arlene’s disappearance….it was information that ought to have been given to the defence, and the failure to do this was a breach of the appellant’s article 6 right’ [to a fair trial]’.
This is a shocking indictment of Scottish justice. It will not be easily corrected without severe embarrassment to the distinguished parties involved, and further distress to the family of Arlene Fraser, and the high-profile political interest in the judicial process of the case is a gratuitous complicating factor. The question must now be addressed: if the accused was denied a fair trial in 2003, what are his chances of obtaining one now?
Tomorrow: part 2 of Rings of Truth
