The Crown Office will not confirm if any action for defamation is to be taken in respect of claims made about Crown agent Norman MacFadyen, despite issuing an unprecedented statement which purports that “defamatory and entirely unfounded allegations of the most serious kind” had been made against him.
The Crown issued the statement on 17 July, but did not state what allegations they were referring to. They did however state that they had been made by MSP Christine Grahame in relation her inquires into the Lockerbie proceedings.
The Crown Office had been asked to clarify whether an action for defamation would follow from Mr McFadyen, given the unprecedented nature of the statement they had issued which not only robustly defended Mr MacFadyen, but suggested Ms Grahame, a former solicitor, had failed to understand the judicial process she was referring to.
“Norman McFadyen is a man of the utmost integrity who is held in the highest regard by the Law Officers,” the Crown statement said.
“Not only is the allegation false in itself but Mrs Grahame appears to have misunderstood the process because the documents which she has referred to were not part of and had absolutely nothing to do with it."
The Crown Office as an organisation is not permitted to raise an action for defamation following the decision in the 1984 Derbyshire County Council case. McFadyen himself is presently on leave. The Crown Office has advised that any decision on whether to raise such an action would be a private matter for him.
[The above is the text of a news item posted today on the website of the Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm.]
The headless chickens in the Crown Office can only get away with this stupid behaviour because the Scottish Parliament is in recess.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the Lord Advocate Elish Angiolini is meant to be in overall charge here.
Unless Mrs Angiolini is currently snorkelling off the great barrier reef, like Mr MacFadyen, she should immediately drop the ridiculous threat of legal action and issue a suitably humble (and public) apology to Christine Grahame MSP.