Last year former MSP and former Leader of The Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) won £200 000 in damages from the News of the World in a libel action at the High Court in Edinburgh, after they had alleged that he was a serial adulterer, swinger and user of drugs. Four of his SSP MSP colleagues testified against him in the trial and one, Rosemary Byrne, in his favour.
Sheridan and Byrne subsequently set up their own party Solidarity (calling a Trot faction by this name is a gross insult to Polish Solidarity) as an offshoot of the SSP. In the 2007 elections both factions got creamed and all 6 Trot MSPs were kicked out on their arses.
Shortly after the trial finished Lothian & Borders Constabulary commenced a investigation into potential perjury during the trial and on the 17th December 2007 Tommy Sheridan was charged with perjury. Earlier on this month former MSP Rosemary Byrne was charged as were Solidarity acolytes Jock Penman and Graham McIver.
Today the news breaks that his wife Gail and Father-in-Law Angus Healy are being questioned by Lothian & Border's finest over more perjury allegations. During the trial Gail claimed that Tommy would be "in the Clyde with a piece of concrete tied round him" if she thought there was any truth in the allegations. His Father-in-Law gave him an alibi for three of the times when he was supposedly taking part in threesomes in a Glasgow hotel.
The maximum penalty for perjury in Scotland is 10 years in prison.
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4 comments:
I have a particular interest in this case (see previous blog posts at http://loveandgarbage.livejournal.com/tag/tommy+sheridan which is a full archive of the case and aftermath). I'd be interested to know where you get the figure for the maximum sentence from?
I came across it in a Scotsman article from 3rd October 2006.
Link: http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/politics/Perjury-inquiry-launched-into-Sheridan.2815522.jp
Many thanks
I've been trying to check on this and my understanding is that if the charge is at common law there is no statutory maximum sentence (if eventually tried in the High Court) - meaning the maximum would be life (although that would be unheard of). However, the nature of the case may mean that other matters are charged, such as conspiracy to pervert the course of justice - if there was a systematic attempt to mislead the court.
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