Alex Salmond insists that MSPs have a duty of care to their constituents? Since when? Duty of care is a legal term for having specific responsibilities to ensure safety from harm through, just for example, negligence.
However, the law is not a harmful process which people need to be protected from. Quite the opposite. If MSPs have an over-riding duty of care it is to their law-abiding constituents who need protection from dedicated fraudsters and criminals like Ms Sturgeon’s crooked new friend, Mr Rauf.
Obviously, the First Minister would never resort to falsifying the position to help even a beleagured colleague. However, this one requires his full and unequivocal explanation.
Entries categorized as ‘Crime’
Alex Salmond’s duty of care – to tell the truth
February 13, 2010 · 4 Comments
Categories: Crime · Scotland · politics
Tagged: Alex, First, Minister, Nicola, Salmond, Sturgeon
I reckon Tiger Woods and I are just the most clubbable people
December 7, 2009 · Leave a Comment
SO MY CAR hit a tree in the Castle Grounds in the wee small hours of the morning and no one has seen me since? That is our private, family business. All this wild speculation has gone on for far too long, so I have decided to release a statement.
First of all, it is being claimed that, as I was lying there in the ditch, there was an angry woman standing over me with a golf club. But the tree which I accidentally nudged, unfortunately knocking me unconscious and demolishing the entire front end of my car, was actually opposite Stornoway Golf Club. So no surprise there.
There are always bent and discarded clubs lying around in that area – especially after Callum Ian MacMillan has been playing.
There has been a lot of ill-informed comment about what I was doing there at that time. The fact is I work hard and I am very busy during the week. That silly ban on Sunday golf here on Lewis means that I cannot go on Sunday, so I go and practise my swing whenever I have a free hour or two.
In fact, quite a few of us swingers are regularly in Lady Lever Park in the middle of the night. So what? We are merely saving a fortune on membership fees. Again, just my private business. OK?
It has also been claimed in some of the less-responsible rags that just before the accident, an angry woman was seen chasing me along Bayhead and waving what looked, to someone with a pair of high-powered binoculars in a top-floor eyrie in Canada Crescent, like a golf club.
The fact that these claims have surfaced just days after it was revealed in this newspaper that I was looking for a new housekeeper, preferably from the Bowglass area, because, it was alleged, I did not think the current Mrs Maciver was up to the mark, is just completely coincidental.
Anyway, it wasn’t a golf club; it was a guitar. Just because Mrs X has been known to while away evenings strumming these instruments should be taken as no indication whatsoever that I did anything at all to cause her strings to snap.
The language of the guitarist is sadly often misunderstood. When she practises, she talks away to herself about how she must pluck this or pluck that when she is next playing in the Lewis Bar or the Dark Island Hotel: people do get the wrong idea. She is actually very mild-mannered.
Maybe the back window of my car was broken. Obviously, I can’t remember. The fact that someone in the Star Inn says a beat-up Vauxhall Vectra was seen on the back of Colin Oisean’s lorry being put onto the Muirneag within hours of my whoopsie is something I cannot confirm, either. Remember, I am still in shock here.
Nothing happened. Honest.
It has also been suggested that I have not been showing my face around the town until the scratches caused by some woman’s nails and an almighty sglog on my napper from the golf club have properly healed. Listen, if I was that bothered at what people thought of my face, do you think I would have spent all these years wearing this one? There, I am glad I have cleared up that matter for you and hope that will put the matter to rest once and for all.
Isn’t life full of coincidences, though? I hear that some golfer in America has had much the same kind of really unfortunate experience as myself. A wee late-night bump, knocked senseless, lying gaga on the ground, claims of a number five iron involved, broken back window, that sort of thing.
The similarities are incredible. Tiger drives a Cadillac Escalade SUV, handed to him personally by General Motors of Renaissance Centre in Detroit, and I drive General Motors’ other triumph, the Vauxhall Vectra, handed to me personally by Clinton Motors of Sandwick Road in Stornoway.
And Tiger lives in the Isle of Worth in Florida, now known as Isleworth, which is plush, always sunny and everyone is open-minded. I live on the Isle of Lewis which is, er, the Isle of Lewis. Uncanny, eh?
Unluckily for Mr Woods, there is one slight difference between our two lives. He is not married to a sweet, understanding person who forgives her husband for everything from picking his nose to noisily normalising internal air pressures at the table and casting unfounded doubts on her housekeeping skills. And mine doesn’t demand millions of pounds for not selling an exclusive kiss-and-tell.
But some women are high-maintenance and difficult to fathom.
Take Roseanna Cunningham. What is our glorious environment minister on? She blurted out to some magazine that Harris Tweed was wrapped up in a very 19th-century Victorian gentleman’s view of rural Scotland. Eh?
Roseanna said she kept seeing these awful people who have no major connection with the country wearing “the costume”. She hates seeing that.
No word of all the designers who have taken to using the hardy, homespun cloth to drape around the waifish dahlings who stalk the catwalks of the very top fashion shows. No word of the posh, new hotels which use it for everything from sofas and flooring to making the toilet seat warmer to sit on.
And no word from Ms Cunningham, either, for the cheeky housewife somewhere on the island here who is making slinky, pink knickers out of tweed for her more adventurous and more fun-loving clientele. Oops, I’ve said too much. Honestly, me and my mouth. Time to go now. I have been writing this for ages and it is time for bed. There is a racket out on the street. I can hear youngsters shouting to each other to hurry up so they can go dancing in town. Honestly, who on earth wants to go out clubbing at 2.30am?
Apart from Tiger Woods’s wife?
Categories: Crime · Isle of Lewis · Scotland · Stornoway · Uist · Western Isles
Tagged: golf, Lews Castle, Roseanna Cuningham, Stornoway Golf Club, Tiger Woods
Missing Lewis heifer washed up on Orkney
May 17, 2009 · Leave a Comment
ONE of three cattle which mysteriously disappeared last week from
common grazings in the Western Isles has turned up dead on
Orkney.
Although the three beasts were seen happily grazing on Sunday,
May 3, two days later they had vanished sparking a large-scale
search operation which found no trace of them.
Jock shows the cliffs near Tolsta
Now suspicion is growing that low-flying military planes taking
part in a large military exercise spooked the cattle causing them
to plunge off the sheer cliffs close to where they were kept.
Retired Metropolitan Police detective Jock Murray, who was
looking after the cattle for his daughter Catriona and her
husband David Maclennan, was baffled how Catherine the
five-year-old cow, Heather the two-year-old heifer and Angusina,
a one-year-old calf, had gone missing and all at the same time.
The three beasts and another bullock were on the common grazings
between his home village of Gress and neighbouring North Tolsta
in an area known as the Cnip.
“You hear of animals very occasionally going too near cliffs and
falling. However, I have not heard of several animals falling off
cliffs at the same time without good reason. They must have been
scared of something and as there are no sheep on the common
grazings between Gress and North Tolsta you never see any dogs
there.
“But a large military exercise has been going on off the
north-west of Scotland and there have been reports in the local
media of low-flying by jets particularly late at night. That is
why we have good grounds for thinking that has had something to
do with what happened to these cattle,” he said.
Poor Heather was found washd up on Orkney
He said that as well as the considerable financial loss to his
daughter and her husband, he and his wife Donalda as well as
their daughter’s children had become very attached to the animals
and were devastated at how all three had disappeared without
trace.
“We have had search parties with quad bikes all over the moors
and we have had friends and coastguard personnel searching the
coast with us in boats. Then on Thursday, Catriona had a phone call from the vet in Orkney saying Heather the heifer had been washed up not far from Skara Brae. We had been traced through
the ear tags.”
Mr Murray is now keen to build up a picture of what may have
caused the cattle – or at least poor Heather – to plunge down
the cliffs. He appealed for anyone who heard military aircraft on
Monday or Tuesday of last week in the Back or North Tolsta area
to contact him on 01851 820225.
The Royal Air Force said that Exercise Joint Warrior had been in
progress at the time but could shed little other light.
Squadron Leader John Gilbert, the RAF’s community relations
officer in Scotland, said: “There are 400 missions by our
aircraft being flown each day so I cannot say now whether there
were specific aircraft in that area around that time.”
He invited Mr Murray to write to him so the RAF could consider
the claim in detail.
The multi-force multi-nation Exercise Joint Warrior is. the MoD
says, aimed at providing joint collective training in a
multi-threat environment for UK, NATO and Allied units and
their staffs, to enable them to operate together in tactical
formations as preparation for deployment in a component of a
Joint Combined Task Force.
It is due to wind up next Thursday.
Categories: Crime · Scotland · Stornoway · Western Isles
Tagged: cattle, gres, Isle of Lewis, Jock Murray, low flying, missing, Orkney, RAF
Search for Simon MacMillan
January 18, 2009 · 1 Comment
There was speculation in the Western Isles today that there had been a major development in the search for Simon MacMillan, who has been missing on South Uist since early on Boxing Day.
A named individual was said to have been arrested and certain discoveries made on Harris. However, a senior police officer has confirmed that these rumours are not true.
Categories: Crime · Uist · Western Isles
Tagged: search, Simon MacMillan, Uist
Falling foul of Harriet’s Law
April 10, 2008 · Leave a Comment
Dear Harriet Harman,
Congratulations on your long-overdue clampdown on over-familiarity in the nation’s spit-and-sawdust pubs. What a brilliant ploy to magic up from nowhere a slab of legislation that makes things as difficult as possible for anyone who hasn’t been to public school. Like you. I can’t wait to be pummelled into a model of political correctness. Well done.
You will be delighted to learn that the threat of porridge in Porterfield for addressing a barmaid as ‘love’ or ‘darling’ is already causing despair in some of the windy places you never bother to visit. While Harriet Law may rein in potty-mouthed menaces in Morningside, it’s a different kettle of monkfish out here in polite Gaelic Britain.
A quick guide to Gaelic for former public school girls: on being asked a question, any question, by one’s wife it is de rigueur to first answer ‘tha, a ghraidh’ (yes, dear) or ‘tha, a ghaoil’ (yes, love). It is not just a working-class thing; people on the dole do it as well. To an inquiry from one’s daughter, girlfriend or even one’s barmaid, one’s response should be ‘tha, m’eudail’ (yes, my darling). It is not that there is any more affection due to anyone else over one’s spouse, it is just that one sees herself all the time.
While the instinctive response to ‘Are the dishes done?’ is ‘tha’ (yes), to buy time, if persistent questioning ensues, it may be necessary to change tack and say ‘chaneil’ (no). See? The Gaelic response, even in the negative, is more personal and causes less offence than a blunt no. The entire language is warmer. Occasionally, on birthdays and mothers’ days, it is even in order for a Hebridean to tackle the washing-up unprompted so he can whoop ‘tha, m’eudail’ (yes, darling). He may then constantly remind said spouse of his effort for 12 months.
Springing anything new on a Gaelic maid behind a bar is fraught with danger. Take Morag, the bar stewardess who fills out the pitchers in the Keith Street tavern. She would never expect me to ask for anything without me putting my native tongue to use. She longs for me to call her ‘m’eudail’ in my cute little puppy-dog way.
You need to know that harsh Harriet Law will be felt most keenly by toilers like my friend George Campbell. He is still looking for an understanding wife, or even one that isn’t. He regularly has to leave his flocks of admirers and sheep to repair fuses on an oil-rig up near Copenhagen. When he returns to resume the search for a Free Church girl to transform into a Coll girl, George always makes it clear that he has not been ensnared by any Scandinavian roughnecks called Helga.
On approaching the bar, he will declare ‘tha mi ag iarraidh te mhor, m’eudail’ (make mine a large one, my darling), with that famous Gawk wink. That’s how the barmaids know he is still available despite the gold-diggers who lie in wait for him after each trip in less-salubrious hostelries down the hill in the centre of Stornoway.
Did I mention George is a radical New Labour thinker? Popping into the tavern on Monday, I found him giving out about a poster on the wall. You know the one; it says Alistair Darling is barred for putting up the price of bevvy in the Budget.
George was pontificating to whoever could hear, which was everyone, that your own chancellor was himself just an ordinary Keith Street boy before he had to go off to be a toff in Edinburgh.
‘Take that off the wall now,’ boomed George, his glasses well steamed up. ‘We should be honoured that, just a few doors away from where we are standing, Alistair M’eudail ran about as a wee boy. He should be welcome here any time.’
A stunned silence fell. It slowly dawned on us that we all felt so much closer to the history of the street, the burgh and the Treasury. Geordie Glackin rolled his eyes and a man from Parkend fell off his stool.
A taxi pulled up. Seven regulars bolted for the door, probably all in a hurry to share with others these pearls of wisdom. As Labour minister for women, you should call up George and keep him legal when he is chatting up barmaids. My own view, for what it’s worth, is that ‘trobhad’ (come and see what I have got here for you) and ‘tuiginn’ (let’s get out of here now, madam) should be exempt from all the legislation.
You really should phone George. I fear that he won’t make a move again until he gets a green light from the horse’s mouth.
With love
Iain x
Published in the Press and Journal on April 9, 2008
Categories: Crime · Popular culture · Stornoway · TV · Western Isles · health · politics
Tagged: Harriet Harman
What if al Fayed is right?
February 19, 2008 · Leave a Comment
Dodi Fayed’s old man did get something spot on. Prince Philip is scary. He scares me when he lifts that eyebrow and comes out with another bigoted, racist outburst. But the dear old Queen doesn’t spook me at all. She is just cuddly and sweet and has nice hats. She would never go around plotting to murder anyone. Right, that’s that cleared up.
It can be seen as a measure of the openness of our society that we allow people like the Harrods boss a public platform to slag off Her Maj and Frankenstein. And Prince Charles, the British, French and American security services, the French justice system, ambulance staff, pathologists, newspaper editors, two former Metropolitan police commissioners, the Princess’s sister and brother-in-law and the former British ambassador to France. And the Princess’s lawyer. Oh and Tony Blair, of course.
If, and it is a big if, al Fayed is right despite the small matter that he has no evidence, it’s a biggie – and it’s still going on. If he is wrong, then it is a good yarn and, whatever, it makes a thorn in royal sides look like a right wally. ‘One told one so, didn’t one.’ I think most people think the Egyptian shopkeeper is a few big blocks short of a pyramid. I do too. It is all too barmy for words. His ranting and raving in court and outside it is not taken seriously by many except the paid members of his own entourage.
Here is a novel suggestion. Let’s allow him a little leeway. After all, he was, and obviously still is, hurting at the loss of his son and he feels rebuffed by an establishment that will always look after its own. In other words, not him. Yes, he is obsessed. Many others are obsessed too whether with politics, Britney Spears or windfarms on Lewis. Al Fayed is hitting out at anyone – and everyone. Let him. It is the British thing to do. Just let him. He will not get a British passport now, that’s for sure. Then again he was never going to.
So he does go on a bit. Doesn’t make him a bad person. When she starts, my mistress can go on a bit as well. Okay, that does make her a bad person when I want to go for a pint and she insists I wait to listen to her rabbiting on about her sister’s husband’s cousin’s latest new friend. Joke, darling.
Here’s another crazy idea. Maybe it is al Fayed who should have shame and ridicule heaped on his balding bonce. After all, it was him who employed Henri Paul, the speed-crazed drunk driver who caused these tragic deaths and … (read slowly and loudly in a rising voice up to a final crescendo like Tom Baker in a Little Britain voiceover) … robbed us all in this great nation of our own wonderful, golden People’s Princess. If anyone should share the responsibility and the guilt and get on his knees to apologise to William and Harry for his part in the death of their mother, it is him. Do you think he will see it that way?
Al Fayed will soon by asking his lawyers ‘Momken eh-he-ssab men fadlak’ which, according to my Arabic tourist guidebook, is ‘May I have the tab, please’. The inquest legal bill will probably cost him hundreds of thousands of pounds. Maybe he will think it worth it for having his day in court and spouting his venom before his colourful life is over. Whereas we, as British taxpayers, had to fork out a mere £6 million for the privilege of listening to that poison from him and his learned flunkies. Lucky us. Mohamed al Fayed is 75, by the way.
Categories: Crime · politics
Tagged: Al Fayed, Prince Philip, Princess Diana, the Queen
Heads should roll over defence laptop
January 19, 2008 · Leave a Comment
It was just bonkers, old chap. There I was taking the personal details of about half a million people on this laptop to the West Midlands. Why I had it when I am just a junior officer is a mystery even to myself. Guard it with your life, said the commandant. Anyway, I locked up the car while I went for a lunchtime snifter in Birmingham. Safe enough, I thought. After all, they said the info is all duplicated elsewhere. I come back later and I find the jolly old car has been broken into. The jolly old laptop had been snaffled. Well, what was one to do?
‘Hullo Benedict, this is Cedric. Guess what, some oik has stolen that laptop – yeah, that’s right, the silver one with all those names on it. It is alright, isn’t it? You have a copy of it all, yes? Er, say again? Bank details, what 3,500 bank details? Passport details, too? Oh yes, forgot about that, old boy. Oh, yikes. Does this mean I may be in trouble, old thing? Father will be most displeased.’
Why was a device with that kind of sensitive – even explosive – information on it not password-protected, encrypted and attached to the officer’s wrist by a clunking great brass chain? Why was the Hurray Henry allowed to leave it unattended in his car? Why were there not two people at all times with the machine?
No, do not talk to me about hindsight being wonderful. It had 600,000 sets of personal details on it. That is exactly what should have happened. That it did not is incompetence, buffoonery and cretinous negligence.
The stolen laptop episode shows again how this government has a serious problem keeping potentially-sensitive data secret. It is not a priority any more. There are obviously few messages coming from on high. This is just the latest in a string of utterly preventable potential catastrophes.
In November, Revenue and Customs said they had lost details of 25 million claimants and since then 6,000 Northern Ireland drivers’ details also vanished. Then another three million drivers’ details were lost. Then, just before Christmas, medical records were confirmed missing at nine NHS trusts. The list goes on. This laptop had home addresses, bank details, national insurance and NHS numbers and even passport details of hundreds of thousands of people. Just about all you need if causing a national epidemic of identity theft takes your fancy.
Serving members of the Royal Navy, Royal Marines and RAF will be the most at risk of potential fraud . That is because all their details are on there. Only Army details were not on it so only our gallant squaddies can rest easier in their beds. Our hero matelots and brave Brylcreem boys should resume fretting – at the double. The pea-brained officer is now facing a court martial. But that should not be the end of it. Why were there no safeguards in place to prevent such potentially ruinous information being wheeled about and left in cars by irresponsible junior personnel?
Des Browne, the defence secretary, will make a statement to the Commons early next week but will he explain the negligence all the way up the line that allowed this appalling incident to happen? It would not be right for only the junior officer to face the wrath of a whiskery court martial. He should have been subject to a protocol that would not allow it to happen in the first place.
The MoD now says it is writing to the 3,500 people whose bank details were known to have been included on the missing laptop. The note should say ‘Sorry and rest assured we will declare the dozy officer and the five senior people above him surplus to requirements.’ That, at least, would help focus minds in other departments on the consequences if they do not take data protection seriously.
Categories: Crime · politics
Tagged: bank details, data protection, defence, laptop, names addresses, stolen
Xmas tears of the tug-of-love parents
December 23, 2007 · Leave a Comment
A national newspaper asks if I will go and see the mother of Misbah Rana, the schoolgirl previously known as Molly Campbell. How is she feeling separated from her daughter at Christmas? That sort of thing. Off I trudge through the snow, only figurative precipitation you understand, and it is a surprise when, after some careful pondering, she says yes. The ex-husband is not playing ball. Internet and phone contact has been cut off. She would like to talk.
Brought up in a tough area in Glasgow, Louise Campbell is a woman who has had a rough deal of the cards in many ways. A heart-rending split with an allegedly domineering husband, a daughter and two sons taking sides against her and fleeing to a far country, another painful split and health problems which have forced her to let her baby daughter be cared for by someone else. Yet when she gets good news from Pakistan about Molly, her spirits immediately rise. You then see the giggly, cheeky, caring mother she must have been before her world collapsed after beloved Molly was snatched last year.
With the schoolgirl only 12 years of age, it was nothing but a vicious, illegal snatch. I stress the point in case you should even think of quibbling over subsequent comments by her daughter and others. Even now, the enduring image of Louise is the trembling, whimpering, tear-stained mess that we saw at that first press conference after Molly vanished. The shock left her totally traumatised and she could hardly articulate ‘I miss her’, never mind analyse her feelings. There were low moments since then as highly-paid lawyers tussled, but there were moments of pure joy too. Especially when mother and daughter chatted endlessly on a webcam link or teased each other in text messages.The uncertainties, the ongoing battle with her ex-husband, the ups and downs have taken a wicked toll. Louise has endured moments of high anxiety, low spirits and even bewilderment. She had to seek help. Her subsequent relationship foundered acrimoniously, health problems emerged and she now has her 18-month child for only part of the week. Yet she is, like she has been since August 2006, when Molly went, driven by hope. Resolute and clear, she declares that Molly will return to her. The only bit Louise is not sure about is the date when that will happen.
Stopping by for another chat with her the other evening, I was struck that there are many other mothers, and I am sure fathers too, in the same awful position. The rates of international child abduction are shockingly high, we are told. The government’s Child Abduction Unit is responsible for registrations and communications in abductions cases to countries signed up to one of two international agreements. It says it deals with more than 500 children each year. About 10 a week. that is a pile of broken hearts.
In such cases, men are often the unthinking bullies bent on what they think is best for themselves. Although it is not only men that do the snatching. Reunite, the campaigning charity set up to help parents whose children have been abducted or who are involved in international custody disputes, has reported a rise in abductions by British women. These are mainly women who marry a foreign national and then take their children back to Britain when their marriage hits problems.
So many parents are left, despairing and broken, doomed to fraught months and years of expensive legal wars across continents to get even a fleeting glimpse on a webcam or just to hear their wee darlings on the telephone. It is a hellish situation to be in. It takes a special person to withstand the pressure of having their precious gift abducted. They have no choice, quite often. To them all, I wish as happy a Christmas as they can have at a distance. And an extra special wish for many more fantastic, tearful, heart-warming reunions in the new year.
Categories: Crime · Scotland · religion
Tagged: Louise Campbell, Misbah Rana, Molly Campbell, Scotland
Three cheers for the dodgy canoe man
December 5, 2007 · Leave a Comment
With these long, cold, blustery evenings, we need a story like the most forgetful canoeist ever. We cannot take it seriously. It is fun. It is recounted down the pub, at the bus stop and over millions of cups of coffee. Yes, I know some multinational insurance company has lost out and our premiums probably went up by £3 each because of his, er, memory lapse. But, importantly, no animals or even people were killed, seriously injured or even slightly harmed in the making of this story. In a few chilly days, it has already been firmly inserted into our great British sub-culture.A friend phones to ask if I have written a promised report for him yet. I tell him he will have it tomorrow. Sorry, I forgot you wanted it so soon – and I forgot to phone you. He moans and ruefully asks if I have been to Panama. Uh? Oh yeah, very good.At Chez Maciver, the Mistress is not in a good mood. I am getting it in the neck. The light of my life lets slip to a sympathetic pal that she hopes I will get the hint if she will ‘get the grumpy old git a canoe for Christmas’. Charming, my love. And so it goes on. The unfolding yarn has many of the elements of a classic thriller. An international mystery, amnesia on a scale you only read about in two bob novels and Boys’ Own tales, a windfall of hundreds of thousands of pounds, a cross-country police probe and a quick arrest of someone who makes out he may not even remember what a policeman even is. Was he drugged? It is so murky; has anyone thought the KGB had a hand in it?
The KGB? That is so 1970s. Sorry.
However, lots still to be explained and, of course, whacking, wild baseless theories circulating on the internet and being repeated as gospel. And a quote that will achieve immortality from John Darwin’s own 80-year-old aunt. After we heard he shuffled into a London police station claiming he could remember nothing about anything, Margaret Burns rolled her bright eyes and tutted: ‘I don’t believe he ever got wet.’ Good ol’ Auntie Maggie. No sex yet, though. Not yet. Just wait until it all really unravels for the Darwins. There is bound to be a measure of illicit slap-and-tickle in there somewhere among the endless tales of other lost souls like Reggie Perrin, John Stonehouse, Gordon Brown et al.
Still the unanswered questions mount up. Did the Darwins’ plan go wrong in a fiery squabble between themselves in their far-off paradise hideaway? If so, was his cunning plan to return with this ripping yarn to explain his disappearance and be with a secret paramour sworn to silence back in the UK? Was John Darwin about to claim his wife was last seen getting into a canoe on a Panamanian beach with a paddle under her arm? Where are the former workmates who recall him being very forgetful? Does anyone remember him having a bang on the head? Well, he will not, that is for sure.
If Anne Darwin really had no idea her errant spouse was still alive – which is hard to believe because of that photo of the pair of them grinning crazily together in Panama last year – will she do a Wendy Alexander and say she believed she was allowed to take all the cash coming her way? In Anne Darwin’s case, that was a life insurance payout of nearly £500,000. What did she do with it all? Can she be extradited back from Panama if no-one else ever has? Does she want to return? Should she?
It does not look like it, I grant you, but would it not be tremendous if it took at least the winter for the constabulary to get to the bottom of the colourful Darwinian theories and travels to far continents. It would give us something to talk about in chill midwinter. By the time the spring flowers are in their glory, it will be time to mark the anniversary of little Madeleine McCann vanishing without a trace on May 3. Unless, of course, the angels smile sweetly on us all in the season of good cheer and and return her too, safe and sound, as the ultimate Yuletide gift back into the bosom of her family. Now that is a story we all need to warm chilled hearts even more than the one about a couple of cold, calculating, heartless, grasping fraudsters with a deft line in whopping excuses.
Categories: Crime · Popular culture
Tagged: canoe man, John Darwin
Inverness Charlie Thistle
October 10, 2007 · Leave a Comment
Any Highland copper will tell you the area has in recent times been awash with some very nasty life-altering drugs. Big-time pushers are languishing in the pokey because of the sterling efforts of HM Plod of Invershneckie. That is why it is more important than ever for those role models who north youngsters look up to to set fine examples. Musicians and soccer clubs, being the pastimes of choice for many of our young darlings, must be high on that list.So what kind of dunderheads are on the board of Inverness Charlie Thistle? The creatures who inhabit the boardroom of the alleged pride of the north obviously have no policy whatsoever on dealing with drug abuse by their players. Their mindless dithering and waffling when wide-eyed player Richie Hart got into the brown stuff for having white stuff to mess up his already inflated head showed what a poor example Caley is to impressionable youngsters.
Clueless club chairman Alan Savage and the other gormless directors, had they put down their G&Ts and been thinking clearly, should have suspended hapless Hart when they found out what he did with his undeserved credit card. No messing about. Clear message to other players, fans and the kids who insist on aping players, some of whom are just self-obsessed nyaffs. Instead, they hummed and ha-ed and sat on their fat little fingers. Like other small-brained species, the Caley directors buried their heads in the mud of the Moray Firth. Now the Highland’s main football team is reduced to spouting drivel and double-speak.
The cowardly club chiefs confirmed they had interviewed Hart. And? And they did nothing. Nothing at all. Because of what he told them, they “… agreed to leave the matter until the allegations were addressed in court.” Did the premier player admit having a Class A drug or not? No information. They even had the barefaced cheek to claim: “The club would like to reassure the club’s commercial partners, supporters and the public that the club adopts a very firm stance in relation to the use and/or possession of drugs.”
And/or? Firm stance? The club this, the club that. Three ‘clubs’ in one sentence all for a blatantly bogus claim not borne out by any positive action. That is just rank gobbledegook from a jobsworth and/or idiot who, going by the verbal diarrhoea, must walk as if he has a broomstick up his trousers and/or backside. Their stance is not firm but wishy-washy. Just rubbish and/or garbage. If they had taken a firm stance, Hart would be home a long time ago listening to his CDs, not cutting out A-class drugs on them.
The sheriff showed that the club’s statement is nonsense. His Lordship said Hart admitted his guilt early so he cut his fine. If he admitted it early to police, I bet he admitted it to Caley as well, so he should have been sent home from the off. If, however, he lied about his crackhead ways to his employers at that interview, he should not have been suspended this week but given his P45 on the court steps. Simple. Caley, of course, have only now got round to suspending him and, … er, that’s it.
Either way, the reputation of a club that has been making huge progress in sporting endeavour is now stained. Their lame message is now that cocaine is okay at Thistle Caley. The club image will remain stained for a long time by the hypocrisy of its directors and the supporters should expect to see some of them take the rap for it. From what I hear, I probably should not hold my breath but if those commercial partners that ICT are so fond of sucking up to have any decency, the sound of heads being knocked together and/or rolling should soon be reverberating under the Kessock Bridge.
Categories: Crime · Scotland
Tagged: drugs, football, Highland
