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    Default Craig Murray sentenced to 8 months in prison

    Another rotten day for truth-seekers.

    Craig's sentencing date was brought forward from Friday to earlier in the morning today.

    I'd be surprised if anybody on the forum membership doesn't know who he is by now, but in my view he should always be upheld as the pre-eminent correspondent covering Julian Assange's appalling plight along with the quite wonderful blog he's been running for well over a decade now.

    Obviously there will be an appeal.

    There's been just much too much else to have had to pay closer attention to in the past few months so I haven't brought more focused attention to his situation quite as prominently as I might otherwise have done.

    Taylor Hudak was 'on call' for the proceedings and broke the news at about 10am (ish)GMT; Jonathan Cook confirms again in this tweet:

    “If a man does not keep pace with [fall into line with] his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” - Thoreau

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    Default Re: Craig Murray sentenced to 8 months in prison

    Craig Murray Jailed for Eight Months for Contempt of Court Over Alex Salmond Trial

    Sputnik
    Mohamed Elmaazi
    UK10:20 GMT 11.05.2021
    (updated 10:53 GMT 11.05.2021)

    The former British diplomat argued the contempt of court charges against him undermine the right to free speech, are unduly broad in their scope, and are a form of politically motivated retaliation, following his outspoken criticism of the prosecution of former Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond.

    The High Court in Edinburgh has jailed former British diplomat-turned-whistleblower Craig Murray for eight months for contempt of court.

    The charge related to Murray's alleged "jigsaw" identification of the identities of protected witnesses in the trial of former Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond.
    But Murray will remain free for three weeks while his lawyers submit an appeal against his conviction.
    Sentencing Murray on Tuesday, 10 May, Lady Leeona Dorrian said his actions "strike at the heart of the fair administration of justice" and created a risk of people alleging sexual offences might not want to come forward in future.

    Murray believed the prosecution of Salmond was politically motivated and he blogged extensively throughout the trial.
    ​Salmond faced a raft of sex allegations but was acquitted by a jury of all of the charges against him.

    The former SNP leader later accused his successor, Nicola Sturgeon, of influencing the prosecution against him and earlier this year he set up his own party, Alba, which ran in the Scottish Parliament elections last week but only won two percent of the vote. Salmond failed to get elected as an MSP.

    ​Murray was charged with three offences:
    · Publication of material that creates a "substantial risk" of prejudicing the jury in violation of the Contempt of Court Act 1981;

    · Reporting on the exclusion of two jurors in violation of a court order "preventing publication of the details of the issues raised by the Advocate Depute on 23 March 2020" as they related to the jurors' removal; and

    · "Jigsaw identification" of alleged victims who testified against Salmond.
    The allegation of jigsaw identification argued that Murray's articles, individually or in conjunction with other articles and material that can be obtained via Google and social media, could indirectly result in a member of the public determining the identity of alleged victims in the Salmond case.
    So let me get this straight, Julian Assange (never published a lie) is in jail, Craig Murray (blew the lid on torture) is going to jail, and Alastair Campbell (sexed-up a dodgy dossier that helped lead to 1,000,000+ deaths) presents Good Morning Britain?
    — Richard Thanki (@richthanki) May 11, 2021
    ​The Government argued in favour of a wide interpretation of jigsaw identification, meaning that a journalist might violate the law if a person with intimate knowledge of the case could piece together the identity of a protected witnesses. Murray's lawyers argued that such an interpretation would be unfair and would violate the Article 10 rights of journalists and the public.

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    Default Re: Craig Murray sentenced to 8 months in prison

    The entire affair was very dodgy, as anyone who viewed the recent committee hearing featuring both Sturgeon and her predecessor will know.

    Incidentally, am I the only one that thinks there's something a bit fishy about those two?

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    Default Re: Craig Murray sentenced to 8 months in prison

    Quote Posted by Journeyman (here)
    The entire affair was very dodgy, as anyone who viewed the recent committee hearing featuring both Sturgeon and her predecessor will know.

    Incidentally, am I the only one that thinks there's something a bit fishy about those two?
    Oh dear

    Smiling momentarily aside, there's one individual I have never liked, at all. Somebody described her (Sturgeon) as a tinpot dictator and it's very hard to refute that assertion.
    “If a man does not keep pace with [fall into line with] his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” - Thoreau

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    Default Re: Craig Murray sentenced to 8 months in prison

    Common denominator = Holly Greig, a victim of paedophilia, journalist Robert Green (RIP) imprisoned to shut him up. UKColumn has loads of history.
    https://www.ukcolumn.org/article/les...salmond-affair

    Many more links at UKColumn. Utter corruption throughout.
    The love you withhold is the pain that you carry
    and er..
    "Chariots of the Globs" (apols to Fat Freddy's Cat)

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    Default Re: Craig Murray sentenced to 8 months in prison

    This article in The Dissenter was recommended by Craig so here it is. It's a good summary of what he's been battling with.

    Source: The Dissenter
    --------------------

    Whistleblower Craig Murray Sentenced To 8 Months In Prison Over His Reporting On Former Scottish First Minister’s Trial

    Hugh Kerr, a former vice chair of the Scottish Executive Council of the National Union of Journalists, called the verdict and sentence "a real threat to civil liberties"
    Mohamed Elmaazi - May 11



    Former UK diplomat-turned whistleblower Craig Murray was sentenced to eight months in prison at the High Court in Edinburgh for contempt of court resulting from his coverage of the trial of former Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond.

    A three-judge panel determined on March 25, 2021—following a two-hour trial in January—that information published by Murray in a number of his blog posts was likely to lead indirectly to people being able to identify witnesses in Salmond’s sexual assault trial.

    This process, known as “jigsaw identification,” refers to the possibility that a person may piece together information from various sources to arrive at the identification of a protected witness.

    In doing so, the judge ruled that Murray violated a court order prohibiting the publication of information that could likely lead to the identification of the alleged victims in Salmond’s case.

    Murray is a broadcaster, human rights advocate and journalist, who has extensively covered the prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and is known to support other whistleblowers. He also strongly supported Salmond and the Scottish campaign for independence.

    He denied the charges, arguing he went to great pains to cover the prosecution without identifying the witnesses.

    The trial and eight-month prison sentence was heavily criticized by a number of veteran Scottish journalists and lawyers.

    Hugh Kerr, a former vice chair of Scottish Executive Council of the National Union of Journalists, was a Labour Party Member of the European Parliament before he joined the SNP. He told The Dissenter that he considered both the verdict and the sentence in Murray’s case to be “disgraceful.”

    “[This decision represents] a real threat to civil liberties,” Kerr argued.

    “A key point, of course, the women who are meant to be threatened with jigsaw ID all remained anonymous, Alex Salmond’s life was destroyed, and Craig Murray’s life is about to be destroyed too.”

    “I know that Craig shall appeal not only to the Supreme Court but also to the European Court of Human Rights. He will do so with the support of many people in Scotland and many people around the world,” Kerr added.

    “It is believed to be the first instance in Scottish legal history where ‘jigsaw identification’ has led to an individual being imprisoned,” a statement released on behalf of Murray’s family declared.

    Award-winning investigative journalist John Pilger said, “In these dark times, Craig Murray's truth-telling is a beacon. He is owed our debt of gratitude, not the travesty of a prison sentence which, like the prosecution of Julian Assange, is a universal warning.”

    “Craig Murray has compiled a remarkable record of courage and integrity in exposing crimes of state and working to bring them to an end,” Professor Noam Chomsky stated, contending Murray “fully merits our deep respect and support for his achievements.”

    Court Felt It Had No Choice But To Imprison Murray

    “A significant fine is how this court normally deals with media contempt, even those that actually interfere with the course of justice,” Roddy Dunlop QC, Murray’s lawyer, told the High Court on May 7. “To rule otherwise, in this case, would be harsh to the point of being disproportionate.”

    In mitigation, Dunlop informed the court that Murray is 62 years old, the father to a newborn child, and suffers from pulmonary health conditions, which will worsen if incarcerated. There was also no risk of repeating the crime and Murray’s intent was never to violate the anonymity order.

    Murray’s legal team highlighted sentences handed down in other cases, such as the English contempt of court case against Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson), the far-right co-founder of the English Defense League.

    In 2017, Yaxley-Lennon filmed and published a video online of criminal defendants on trial for rape, in which he described them as “Muslim child rapists”. He was given a three-month suspended sentence for contempt of court that was conditioned on him not prejudicing any other pending trials.

    One year later, Yaxley-Lennon published another video in explicit defiance of a reporting ban regarding three related sex-assault cases. He was ultimately sentenced to 9 months in prison.

    ‘At The More Serious End Of the Scale’

    Murray’s case is “at the more serious end of the scale,” Judge Lady Leeona J Dorrian said on 11 May, when addressing the other cases raised by the defense.

    Dorrian, who also presided over Salmond’s trial, headed the panel of senior Scottish judges that heard Murray’s contempt of court case.

    In reading out the court’s sentence, Dorrian said that Murray’s actions created “a real risk that complainers [in sex offense cases] may be reluctant to come forward in future cases, particularly where the case may be high profile or likely to attract significant publicity.”

    The publication of jigsaw identification strikes “at the heart of the fair administration of justice,” and therefore “notwithstanding the previous good character of [Murray] and his health issues, we do not think we can dispose of this case other than by way of a sentence of imprisonment,” Dorrian added.

    As part of his defense, Murray submitted examples of mainstream outlets which he argued published even more “jigsaw identification.” In effect, an argument of selective prosecution could be inferred.

    But the judges in Murray’s case considered that to be “irrelevant to whether what [Murray] published constituted a contempt of court.”

    A Politically Motivated Stitch-Up

    Murray was critical of the prosecution of Salmond which he described as a politically motivated stitch-up, a fact which appears to have irked the judges in his case.

    “As with many of the articles with which these proceedings are concerned, the respondent does not merely identify information, put the material before the public, and ask questions arising from it. He acts as arbiter, presenting the matter on the basis that his belief, opinions and interpretation of the information, assuming that is the right word to use, is “the full truth,”” the judges noted in their opinion [PDF] on March 25.

    For his part, Murray contends the charges against him are politically motivated as a result of his support for Salmond.

    Salmond was acquitted by a jury on all 14 counts of sexual harassment and assault brought against him. However, that fact was considered irrelevant by the court when deciding the contempt of court case against Murray.

    Before Salmond was tried in March 2020, evidence had already emerged of a potential conspiracy against the former leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP).

    Emails and text messages between members of the Scottish civil service, the SNP bureaucracy, and some of Salmond’s alleged victims revealed an apparent conspiracy to destroy Salmond's political career and reputation.

    A number of legal and journalistic observers, such as Scottish lawyer Gordon Dangerfield, Scotland’s former Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill MP, and Murray himself called attention to this evidence.

    The High Court of Scotland, which reviewed the investigation and handling of Salmond's case, determined that the process was "unlawful", "procedurally unfair" and "tainted by apparent bias,” a year before the trial commenced.

    Salmond, along with Murray, is known to be a fierce proponent of Scottish independence and his prosecution comes at a time of splits within the SNP about the direction of the party and how the matter of independence is being approached by the current leadership of First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.

    A number of well-known Scots joined with Salmond to form the pro-independence Alba Party in February 2021. However, the overall politicized nature of Salmond’s case did not feature in Murray’s contempt of court trial.

    Murray’s Intentions And Motives Deemed Irrelevant

    The contempt of court offense is one of “strict liability,” which means Murray’s intentions or motivations were deemed irrelevant by the court.

    “The question which must be asked is whether in its context the material was such as was likely, objectively speaking, to lead to identification of the complainers,” the court determined.

    Also of significance was the court’s decision to apply a wide test when deciding whether Murray committed contempt of court. Though the defense argued that the threshold should be whether “the public at large” was likely to be able to piece together the identification of a protected witness, the court disagreed.

    “If the material would be likely to enable a particular section of the public to do so that would be sufficient.”

    In other words, if someone who knows the complainants in Salmond’s case is likely to be able to piece together their identity from a combination of Murray’s articles along with their own specific knowledge – that is enough for Murray to have violated the court order.

    Two other charges—one alleging that Murray violated a court order barring the reasons given for the dismissal of a juror and the other alleging that two articles he published created a substantial risk of prejudicing the jury—were both dismissed by the court.

    According to Kerr, Dorrian, who presided over both Salmond’s trial and Murray’s contempt of court proceedings, “has led the campaign to get rid of juries in the cases of sex offenses in Scotland.”

    The Scottish government has been looking into specialized legal proceedings in sex offense cases, whereby complainants might be able to give evidence via video link as a matter of course and where judges would give the final verdict as to guilt or innocence.

    Kerr considered this to be a “very worrying” development, which would have deprived Salmond of a jury and likely resulted in a conviction.

    Appealing To The Supreme Court

    Although the court originally gave Murray 48 hours to surrender himself to authorities, they extended that to three weeks after Dunlop requested more time so an appeal to the Supreme Court could be lodged.

    The decision means that Murray will not be able to attend in person as a witness in the ongoing Spanish criminal case against UC Global Director David Morales, who is being prosecuted for his role in the alleged illegal surveillance of Assange, his lawyers, and their privileged communications.

    In a twist of irony, Dunlop, who is Scotland’s most senior lawyer - known as Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, was among the attorneys representing the Scottish government when Salmond successfully sued them in the High Court. Dunlop and one of his colleagues, threatened to resign if their client, the Scottish executive, didn’t concede the lawsuit, once it became apparent that they withheld evidence that they were obligated to disclose to Salmond’s lawyers.

    “We have a very serious problem in Scotland at present”, veteran journalist Mark Hirst told The Dissenter.

    In Hirst’s view, the Crown Office is “an institutionally corrupt prosecuting authority” which is “abusing their power and acting in an evidently biased and political manner.”

    Hirst, a longstanding friend of Murray, said he knows through his own discussions “with senior lawyers and serving police officers that there is concern the Crown Office are bringing the entire legal system in Scotland into utter disrepute.”

    “Major reform is needed or we will see other journalists and political activists falling victim to malicious proceedings,” Hirst concluded.

    *Correction: The article was updated to accurately reflect Hugh Kerr’s position as the former vice chair of Scottish Executive Council of the National Union of Journalists.
    “If a man does not keep pace with [fall into line with] his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” - Thoreau

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    Default Re: Craig Murray sentenced to 8 months in prison

    Craig Murray begins 8-month prison sentence for thoughtcrime of 'jigsaw identification'

    Wings Over Scotland
    Fri, 30 Jul 2021 12:40 UTC



    Legal precedent will be set tomorrow as Craig Murray will be the first person to be imprisoned on the charge of jigsaw identification in the UK, and indeed in the entire world. Scotland's second most senior judge, Lady Dorrian, sentenced Murray to 8 months of incarceration following a contempt of court charge for 'jigsaw identification' relating to the trial against Alex Salmond.

    In May Lady Dorrian said that in her view Murray had intended to release identities of Salmond's accusers. Mr Murray has always denied any intent to identify and that anybody was actually identified. Murray had not directly identified any of the accusers in the Salmond trial, but Dorrian argued identification may be possible if his reporting of the case was read in connection with other materials in the public domain.

    No one aside from Murray was charged with jigsaw identification in connection with the Salmond case, despite the fact that 81% of respondents in a Panelbase survey who believed that they had learned identities, gave mainstream media as the source of their knowledge. Lady Dorrian specifically stated that bloggers and mainstream media should be treated differently, as mainstream media are self-regulated.
    SOTT Comment: Right...
    Murray is the first person to be imprisoned in the UK for a media contempt for over 50 years, and in Scotland for over 70 years.

    Murray's imprisonment comes after an announcement from the UK Supreme Court that it will not hear his appeal. Former UK Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray will surrender himself to police shortly and begin to serve the custodial sentence handed to him. A public protest against Murrays' incarceration is planned. Murray's wife and mother of their 5 month and 12 year old sons Nadira has written an open letter asking for "active and outspoken solidarity from anyone concerned about the loss of freedom of speech and equality before the law".

    Murray had recently been called as a witness in a case brought by Spanish state prosecutors against UC Global for allegedly acting on behalf of the CIA in covertly spying on Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy. Material before the Spanish court includes several hours of covert surveillance video of Murray in private conversation with Assange on the future of Assange and Wikileaks. The Scottish court removed Murray's passport expressly to prevent him traveling to Spain to testify.

    Craig Murray commented:
    "I go to jail with a clean conscience after a Kafkaesque trial. I genuinely do not know who I am supposed to have identified or which phrases I published are said to have identified them, in combination with what other information in the public domain. This judgement will have a chilling effect on reporting of the defence case at trials, to the detriment of justice, and the different treatment of bloggers and approved media is sinister.

    I carefully protect the identities of the accusers in my reports.

    I believe this is actually the state's long sought revenge for my whistleblowing on security service collusion with torture and my long term collaboration with Wikileaks and other whistleblowers. Unfortunately important free speech issues are collateral damage."
    Murray and the Craig Murray Justice committee have both signalled their intention to continue to resist the penalty handed to him by continuing to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights via all routes required. They are particularly concerned that in her opinion Lady Dorrian implied that bloggers and public commentators like Murray ought to be punished more severely than mainstream journalists for the same offense.

    Ellen Joelle Dalzell, coordinator of the Craig Murray Justice campaign group stated:
    "The sentence handed to Craig Murray not only sets legal precedent in terms of a custodial sentence for the charge of jigsaw identification, it represents an attack on free speech in general, and a tangible threat to the free reporting of legal trials in particular.

    The judgement is excessively punitive, is likely to have severe implications for Murray's poor health and represents a dangerous precedent for journalists and other writers who seek to fairly report or comment on matters of public law."
    _______________________________________________________

    SOTT Comment: The 'trial' and conviction of Murray is detailed here. This is his final blogpost before he enters prison, today, 30 July:
    This blog will be going dark for a few months. The Queen kindly paid for my dinners for over twenty years while I was a British diplomat and Ambassador, and now she is going to be paying for my dinners again. That is very kind, I thought she had forgotten me.

    The following is a statement from Nadira [Murray's wife]:
    29.07.21
    Today is the most heartbreaking day. My husband whose health has been found to not be suitable for prison must hand himself in for detention within hours following the UK Supreme Court's decision not to hear his appeal.

    We were extremely hopeful that the Supreme Court would hear his case and had no doubt that this particular case should have been heard given how important and relevant it is in the context of Freedom of Speech in the UK. Instead, the Supreme Court declined to hear it.

    Yet again my heart is deeply saddened to find that the UK, once a country which placed great importance on Human Rights issues, has failed to listen to my husband's case. Additionally, the Scottish Court outright dismissed Craig's poor health, having been made aware through the mandatory Social Work report and doctor's reports that his wellbeing would be at risk if forced to go to jail.

    At first I tried to come to terms of him being jailed in the hope he would be granted dignified conditions in jail but I am saddened and shocked to learn he could be placed among criminals, with no ability to bring books or enable him to write, with no entertainment allowed. He is being treated like a criminal. This is not a just punishment, this is a deliberate attempt to break the spirit of anyone brave enough to make use of free speech.

    Given a pen and paper what do you do? You write in your own voice speaking the truth. Having been with Craig for two decades he has always spent his time and energy highlighting injustices and standing up for what is right, carefully, considerately and consistently.

    I was brought up during Soviet times, and post independence in my own country, Uzbekistan. I have witnessed and personally experienced myself what the price of freedom of speech truly is. Opponents were 'disappeared' or it was claimed they had 'taken their own life', or been locked away in asylums. I am filled with fear this pattern is now repeating itself in the UK. It is appalling to see Craig is going through the same treatment in the so-called 'human rights' respecting country UK.

    This is an attack on Truthtellers. His writings are those of a highly qualified Journalist, Human Rights Activist, former Rector of Dundee University and former British Ambassador. To us, his family, this situation is devastating: I am now left with my 5 months old baby, yet to find a good way to explain Craig's jail sentence to his confused and anxious 12 year old son.

    Of any readers concerned with the loss of freedom of speech and equality before the law I ask that you show active and outspoken solidarity with my partner.
    A Craig Murray Justice Campaign has been formed which I hope you can support. Find them on twitter @cmurrayjustice . Their website will be up shortly and details will be posted on this site.
    Murray's imprisonment could be punishment for his support of Julian Assange, but it may also be motivated by the power struggle in Scotland between the Scottish National Party - which has dithered on independence since the UK security services rigged the referendum in 2014 - and the 'old guard' represented by Alex Salmond, which is trying to rescue genuine nationalist independence from the jaws of mediocrity, Covid-1984 and perpetual corruption.

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    Default Re: Craig Murray sentenced to 8 months in prison

    Scotland's most prominent political prisoner was released earlier today...

    (I may disagree with a lot of Craig's politics but I never thought in all seriousness I'd ever be making a statement like this about my home country)

    But...he's come out politically re-energised, and even more determined to see Scotland gain true (not faux, a la Sturgeon) Scottish Independence.

    If Sturgeon thought she'd crush his spirit & shut him up by imprisoning him, then she's sadly miscalculated on this...



    Though I disagree with a lot of his politics, he is a decent man, and if he can make some headway towards restoring balance, fairness & impartiality to the highest levels our corrupt judicial system, politics, the civil service & the police, then I'd support him politically in everything he does.

    Ultimately Craig may be our best shot at removing Sturgeon & her cronies, and with them the endemic establishment corruption that's exposed itself in Scottish society over recent years...

    One can only hope...
    Last edited by ByTheNorthernSea; 30th November 2021 at 15:16.

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    Default Re: Craig Murray sentenced to 8 months in prison

    Here's Craig's full statement

    “If a man does not keep pace with [fall into line with] his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” - Thoreau

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    Default Re: Craig Murray sentenced to 8 months in prison

    A fascinating insight to life 'inside'.

    Your Man in Saughton Jail Part 1
    January 5, 2022 Craig Murray
    Source: https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archi...n-jail-part-1/

    In my second week in Saughton jail, a prisoner pushed open the door of my cell and entered during the half hour period when we were unlocked to shower and use the hall telephone in the morning. I very much disliked the intrusion, and there was something in the attitude of the man which annoyed me – wheedling would perhaps be the best description. He asked if I had a bible I could lend him. Anxious to get him out of my cell, I replied no, I did not. He shuffled off.

    I immediately started to feel pangs of guilt. I did in fact have a bible, which the chaplain had given me. It was, I worried, a very bad thing to deny religious solace to a man in prison, and I really had no right to act the way I did, based on an irrational distrust. I went off to take a shower, and on the way back to my cell was again accosted by the man.

    “If you don’t have a Bible,” he said, “Do you have any other book with thin pages?”

    He wanted the paper either to smoke drugs, or more likely to make tabs from a boiled up solution of a drug.

    You cannot separate the catastrophic failure of the Scottish penal system – Scotland has the highest jail population per capita in all of Western Europe – from the catastrophic failure of drugs policy in Scotland. 90% of the scores of prisoners I met and spoke with had serious addiction problems. Every one of those was a repeat offender, back in jail, frequently for the sixth, seventh or eighth time. How addiction had led them to jail varied. They stole, often burgled, to feed their addiction. They dealt drugs in order to pay for their own use. They had been involved in violence – frequently domestic – while under the influence.

    I had arrived in Saughton jail on Sunday 1 August. After being “seen off” by a crowd of about 80 supporters outside St Leonards police station, I had handed myself in there at 11am, as ordered by the court. The police were expecting me, and had conducted me to a holding area, where my possessions were searched and I was respectfully patted down. The police were very polite. I had been expecting to spend the night in a cell at St Leonards and to be taken to jail in a prison van on the Monday morning. This is what both my lawyers and a number of policemen had explained would happen.

    In fact I was only half an hour in St Leonards before being put in a police car and taken to Saughton. This was pretty well unique – the police do not conduct people to prison in Scotland. At no stage was I manacled or handled and the police officers were very friendly. Reception at Saughton prison – where prisoners are not usually admitted on a Sunday – were also very polite, even courteous. None of this is what happens to an ordinary prisoner, and gives the lie to the Scottish government’s claim that I was treated as one.

    I was not fingerprinted either in the police station or the jail, on the grounds I was a civil prisoner with no criminal conviction. At reception my overcoat and my electric toothbrush were taken from me, but my other clothing, notebook and book were left with me.

    I was then taken to a side office to see a nurse. She asked me to list my medical conditions, which I did, including pulmonary hypertension, anti-phospholipid syndrome, Barrett’s oesophagus, atrial fibrillation, hiatus hernia, dysarthria and a few more. As she typed them in to her computer, options appeared on a dropdown menu for her to select the right one. It was plain to me she had no knowledge of several of these conditions, and certainly no idea how to spell them

    The nurse cut me off very bluntly when I politely asked her a question about the management of my heart and blood conditions while in prison, saying someone would be round to see me in the morning. She then took away from me all the prescription medications I had brought with me, saying new ones would be issued by the prison medical services. She also took my pulse oximeter, saying the prison would not permit it, as it had batteries. I said it had been given to me by my consultant cardiologist, but she insisted it was against prison regulations.

    This was the most disconcerting encounter so far. I was then walked by three prison officers along an extraordinarily long corridor – hundreds of yards long – with the odd side turning, which we we ignored. At the end of the corridor we reached Glenesk Block. The journey to my cell involved unlocking eight different doors and gates, including my cell door, every one of which was locked behind me. There was no doubt that this was very high security detention.

    Once I reached floor 3 of Glenesk block, which houses the admissions wing, we acquired two further guards from the landing, so five people saw me into my cell. This was twelve feet by eight feet. May I suggest that you measure that out in your room? That was to be my world for the next four months. In fact I was to spend 95% of the next four months confined in that space.

    The door was hard against one wall, leaving space within the 12 ft by 8ft cell for a 4 ft by 4 ft toilet in one corner next the door. This was fully walled in, to the ceiling, and closed properly with an internal door. This little room contained a toilet and sink. The toilet had no seat. This was not an accident – I was not permitted a toilet seat, even if I provided it myself. It was a normal UK style toilet, designed to be used with a seat, with the two holes for the seat fixing, and a narrow porcelain rim.

    The toilet was filthy. Below the waterline it was stained deep black with odd lumps and ridges. Above the waterline it was streaked and spotted with excrement, as was the rim. The toilet floor was in a disgusting state. The cell itself was dirty with, everywhere a wall or bolted down furniture met the floor, a ridge built up of hardened black dirt.

    A female guard looked around the cell, then came back to give me rubber gloves, a surface cleaner spray and some cloths. So I spent my first few hours in my cell on my knees, scrubbing away furiously with these inadequate materials.

    The female guard had advised me that even after cleaning the cell I should always keep shoes on, because of the mice. I heard them most nights in my cell, but never saw one. The prisoners universally claim them to be rats, but not having seen one I cannot say.

    A guard later explained to me that prisoners are responsible for cleaning their own cells, but as nobody generally stayed in a new admissions cell for more than two or three nights, nobody bothered. Cells for new arrivals will be cleaned out by a prisoner work detail, but as I had arrived on a Sunday, that had not happened.

    So about 3pm I was locked in the cell. At 5.20pm the door opened for two seconds to check I was still there, but that was it for the day. There I was confused, disoriented and struggling to take in that all this was really happening. I should describe the rest of the cell.

    A narrow bed ran down one wall. I came to realise that prison in Scotland still includes an element of corporal punishment, in that the prisoner is very deliberately made physically uncomfortable. Not having a toilet seat is part of this, and so is the bed. It consists of an iron frame bolted to the floor and holding up a flat steel plate, completely unsprung. On this unyielding stell surface there is a mattress consisting simply of two inches of low grade foam – think cheap bath sponge – encased in a shiny red plastic cover, slashed or burnt through in several places and with the colour worn off down the centre.

    The mattress was stamped with the date 2013 and had lost its structural resistance, to the extent that if I pinched it between my finger and thumb, I could compress it down to a millimetre. On the steel plate, this mattress had almost no effect and I woke up after a sleepless first night with acute pain throughout my muscles and difficulty walking. To repeat, this is deliberate corporate punishment – a massively superior mattress could be provided for about £30 more per prisoner, while in no way being luxurious. The beds and mattresses can only be designed to inflict both pain and, perhaps more important, humiliation. It is plainly quite deliberate policy.

    It is emblematic of the extraordinary lack of intellectual consistency in the Scottish prisons system that cells are equipped with these Victorian punishment beds but also with TV sets showing 23 channels including two Sky subscription channels (of which I shall write more in another instalment). The bed is fixed along one long wall, while a twelve inch plywood shelf runs the length of the other and can serve as a desk. At one end, up against the wall of the toilet, this desk meets a built in plywood shelving unit fixed into the floor,on top of which are sat the television and kettle next to two power points. At the other end of the desk, a further set of shelves are attached to the wall above. There is a plastic stackable chair of the cheapest kind – the sort you see stacked outside poundshops as garden furniture.

    On the outside wall there is a small double glazed window with heavy, square iron bars two inches thick running both horizontally and vertically, like a noughts and crosses grid. The window does not open, but had metal ventilation strips down each side, which were stuck firmly closed with black grime. At the other end of the cell, next to the toilet, the heavy steel door is hinged so as to have a distinct gap all round between the door and the steel frame, like a toilet cubicle door.

    Above the desk shelf is fixed a noticeboard, which is the only place prisoners are allowed to put up posters or photos. However as prsoners are not permitted drawing pins, staples, sellotape or blu tak, this was not possible. I asked advice from the guards who suggested I try toothpaste. I did – it didn’t work.

    There is a single neon light tube.

    The admissions unit has single occupancy cells, of which there are very few in the rest of the jail. All the prison’s cells were designed for single occupancy, but massive overcrowding means that they are mostly in practice identical to this description, but with a bunk bed rather than a single bed.

    The prison is divided into a number of blocks. Glenesk block had three floors, each containing 44 of these cells. Each floor is entered by a central staircase and has a centrally located desk where the guards are stationed. Either side of the desk are two heavy metal grills stretching right across the floor and dividing it into two wings. Within the central area is the kitchen where meals are collected (though not prepared), then eaten back locked in the cell.

    The corridor between the cells either side of each wing is about 30 feet wide. It contains a pool table and fixed chairs and tables, and is conceived as a recreational area. There are two telephones at the end of each wing from which prisoners may call (at 10p a minute) numbers from a list they have pre-registered for approval.

    The various cell blocks are located off that central spine corridor whose length astonished me at first admission. I did not realise then that this is a discreet building in itself rather than a corridor inside a building – it is like a long concrete overground tunnel.

    I should describe my typical day the first ten weeks. At 7.30am the cell door springs open without warning as guards do a head count. The door is immediately locked again. At 8am cereals, milk and morning rolls are handed in, and the door is immediately locked again. At 10am I was released into the corridor for 30 minutes to shower and use the telephone. The showers are in an open room but with individual cubicles, contrary to prison movie cliche. At 10.30am I was locked in again.

    At 11am I was released for one hour and escorted under supervision to plod around an enclosed, tarmac exercise yard about 40 paces by 20 paces. This yard is filthy and contains prison bins. One wing of Glenesk block forms one side, and the central spine corridor forms another; the wall of a branch corridor leading to another cell block forms a third and a fence dividing off that block a fourth. The walls are about 10 feet high and the fence about 16 feet high.

    In the non admissions, larger area of Glenesk block the cells had windows with opening narrow side panels. It is the culture of the prison that rather than keep rubbish in their cells and empty it out at shower time, the prisoners throw all rubbish out of their cell windows into the exercise yard. This includes food waste and plates, newspapers, used tissues and worse. At meal times, sundry items (bread, margarine etc) are available on a table outside the kitchen and some prisoners scoop up quantities simply to throw them out of the window into the yard.

    I believe the origin of this is that this enclosed yard is used by protected prisoners, many of whom are sexual offenders. Glenesk house has a protected prisoner area on its second floor. “Mainstream” prisoners from Glenesk exercise on the astroturf five a side football pitch the other side of the spine corridor. (For four months that pitch was the view from my window and I never saw a game of football played. After three months the goals were removed). New admissions exercise in the protected yard because they have not been sorted yet – that sorting is the purpose of the new admissions wing. New prisoners therefore have to plough through the filth prepared for protected prisoners.

    At times large parts of this already small exercise yard were ankle deep in dross – it was cleaned out intermittently, probably on average every three weeks. Only on a couple of occasions was it so bad I decided against exercise. After exercise getting the sludge off my shoes as we went straight back to my cell was a concern. I now understood how the cell had got so dirty.

    After exercise, at noon I collected my lunch and was locked back in the cell. Apart from 2 minutes to collect my tea, I would be locked in from noon until 10am the following morning, for 22 hours solid, every single day. In total I was locked in for 22 and a half hours a day for the first ten weeks. After that I was locked in my cell for 23 hours and 15 minutes a day due to a covid outbreak.

    At 5pm the door would open for a final headcount, and then we would be on lockdown for the night, though in truth we had been locked down all day. Lockdown here meant the guards were going home.

    Now I want you again to just mark out twelve feet by eight feet on your floor and put yourself inside it. Then imagine being confined inside that space a minimum of 22 and a half hours a day. For four months. These conditions were not peculiar to me – it is how all prisoners were living and are still living today. The library, gym and all educational activities had been closed “because of covid”. The resulting conditions are inhumane – few people would keep a dog like that.

    It is also worth noting that Covid is an excuse. In September 2017 an official inspection report already noted that significant numbers of prisoners in Saughton were confined to cells for 22 hours a day. The root problem is massive overcrowding, and I shall write further on the causes of that in a future instalment.

    The long concrete and steel corridors of the prison echo horribly, and after lockdown for the first time I felt rather scared. All round me prisoners were shouting out at the top of their voices. That first evening two were yelling death threats at another prisoner, with extreme expressions of hate and retribution. Inter-prisoner communication is by yelling out the window. This went on all night into the early hours of the morning. Prisoners were banging continually on the steel doors, sometimes for hours, calling out for guards who were not there. Somebody was crying out as though being attacked and in pain. There were sounds of plywood splintering as people smashed up their rooms.

    It was unnerving because it seemed to me I was living amongst severely violent and out of control beserkers.

    Part of the explanation of this is that for most prisoners the new admissions wing on first night is where they go through withdrawal symptoms. Many prisoners come in still drugged up. They are going through their private hell and desperate to get medication. I can understand (though not condone) why the prison medical staff are so remarkably bad and unhelpful. Their job and circumstances are very difficult.

    On that first evening I was concerned that I did not have my daily medicines, and by the next morning my heart was getting distinctly out of synch. I was therefore relieved to receive the promised medical visit.

    My cell door was opened and a nurse, flanked by two guards, addressed me from outside my cell. She asked if I had any addictions. I replied in the negative. I asked when I might receive my medicines. She said it was in process. I asked if I might get my pulse oximeter. She said the prison did not allow devices with batteries. I asked if my bed could somehow be propped or sloped because of my hiatus hernia (leading to gastric reflux) and Barrett’s oesophagus. She said she didn’t think that the prison could do that. I asked about management of my blood condition (APS), saying I was supposed to exercise regularly and not sit for long periods. She replied by asking if I would like to see the psychiatric team. I replied no. She left.

    I was taken out to exercise alone, with four guards watching me. I felt like Rudolf Hess. In the lunch queue I met my first prisoners, who were respectful and polite. The day passed much as the first, and I still did not get my medicines on the Monday. They arrived on the Tuesday morning, as did the prison governor.

    I was told the governor had come to see me, and I met him in the (closed) Glenesk library. David Abernethy is a taciturn man who looks like a rugby prop and has a reputation among prisoners as a disciplinarian, compared to other prison regimes in Scotland. He was accompanied by John Morrison, Glenesk block manager, a friendly Ulsterman, who did most of the talking.

    I was an anomaly in that Saughton did not normally hold civil prisoners. The Governor told me he believed I was their first civil prisoner in four years, and before that in ten. Civil prisoners should be held separately from criminal prisoners, but Saughton had no provision for that. The available alternatives were these: I could move into general prisoner population, which would probably involve sharing a cell; I could join the protected prisoners; or I could stay where I was on admissions.

    On the grounds that nothing too terrible had happened to me yet, I decided to stay where I was and serve my sentence on admissions.

    They wished to make plain to me that it was their job to hold me and it was not for them to make any comment on the circumstances that brought me to jail. I told them I held no grudge against them and had no reason to complain of any of the prison officers who had (truthfully) so far all been very polite and friendly to me. I asked whether I could have books I was using for research brought to me from my library at home; I understood this was not normally allowed. I was also likely to receive many books sent by well-wishers. The governor said he would consider this. They also instructed, at my request, extra pillows to be brought to prop up the head of my bed due to my hiatus hernia.

    That afternoon a guard came along (I am not going to give the names except for senior management, as the guards might not wish it) with the pillows, and said he had been instructed I was a VIP prisoner and should be looked after. I replied I was not a VIP, but was a civil prisoner, and therefore had different rights to other prisoners.

    He said that the landing guards suggested that I should take my exercise and shower/phone time at the same time as other mainstream new admission prisoners (sexual offender and otherwise protected new admission prisoners had separate times). I had so far been kept entirely apart, but perhaps I would prefer to meet people? I said I would prefer that.

    So the next day I took my exercise in that filthy yard in the company of four other prisoners, all new arrivals the night before. I thus observed for the first time something which astonished me. Once in the yard, the new prisoners (who on this occasion arrived individually, not all part of the same case), immediately started to call out to the windows of Glenesk block, shouting out for friends.

    “Hey, Jimmy! Jimmy! It’s me Joe! I am back. Is Paul still in? What’s that? Gone tae Dumfries? Donnie’s come in? That’s brilliant.”

    The realisation dropped, to be reinforced every day, that Saughton jail is a community, a community where the large majority of the prisoners all know each other. That does not mean they all like each other – there are rival gangs, and enmities. But prison is a routine event in not just their lives, but the lives of their wider communities. Those communities are the areas of deprivation of Edinburgh.

    Edinburgh is a city of astonishing social inequality. It contains many of the areas in the bottom 10% of multiple social deprivation in Scotland (dark red on the map below). These are often a very short walk from areas of great affluence in the top 10% (dark blue on the map). Of course, few people make that walk. But I recommend a spell in Saughton jail to any other middle class person who, like myself, was foolish enough to believe that Scotland is a socially progressive country.




    The vast majority of prisoners I met came from the red areas on these maps. The same places came up again and again – including Granton, Pllton, Oxgangs, Muirhouse, Lochend, and from West Lothian, Livingston and Craigshill. Saughton jail is simply where Edinburgh locks away 900 of its poorest people, who were born into extreme poverty and often born into addiction. Many had parents and grandparents also in Saughton jail.

    A large number of prisoners have known institutionalisation throughout their lives; council care and foster homes leading to young offenders’ institutions and then prison. A surprising number have very poor reading and writing skills. The overcrowding of our prisons is a symptom not just of failed justice and penal policy, but of fundamentally flawed economic, social and educational systems.

    Of which I shall also write more later. Here, on this first day with a group in the exercise yard, I was mystified as the prisoners started going up to the ground floor windows and the guards started shouting “keep away from the windows! Stand back from the windows” in a very agitated fashion, but to no effect. Eventually they removed one man and sent him back to his cell, though he seemed no more guilty than the others.

    By the next week I had learnt what was happening. At exercise the new admissions prisoners get drugs passed to them through the window by their friends who have been in the prison longer and had time to get their supply established. These drugs are passed as paper tabs, as pills or in vape tubes. There appears no practical difficulty at all in prisoners getting supplied with plentiful drugs in Saughton. Every single day I was to witness new admissions prisoners getting their drugs at the window from friends, and every single day I witnessed this curious charade of guards shouting and pretending to try and stop them.

    My first few days in Saughton had introduced me to an unknown, and sometimes frightening, world, of which I shall be telling you more.
    “If a man does not keep pace with [fall into line with] his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” - Thoreau

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