Attacks on former lord advocate over Murrell case were ‘deeply unfair’, MPs told

Attacks on Scotland’s former top prosecutor after she briefed the First Minister on the Peter Murrell case were “deeply unfair”, her predecessor has said.

Dorothy Bain KC, who stepped down as lord advocate earlier this year, came under fire at Holyrood after it emerged she had told John Swinney about the scale of the embezzlement charge against his party’s former chief executive almost a year before it became public knowledge.

Amid an outcry over the briefing Mr Swinney announced an independent inquiry into the roles and responsibility of the post, with the lord advocate serving as both Scotland’s most senior prosecutor and an adviser to the Scottish Government on legal matters.

James Wolffe KC, who was lord advocate before Ms Bain, defended his successor as he was pressed on the case by MPs on Westminster’s Scottish Affairs Committee.

He said it “wasn’t routine” for lord advocates to provide information on live criminal cases, but noted the Crown Office had provided a list of other cases where ministers – at Holyrood and Westminster – had been briefed.

These showed “a variety of communications, in a variety of contexts by successive law officers to ministers, mainly to Scottish ministers but also to UK ministers”, Mr Wolffe said.

He added: “I see nothing in those letters to raise any red flag about the integrity of the system, or the integrity of the lord advocate.”

Speaking about Ms Bain he said: “So far as I can see, what she was doing was she was providing a factual update on a case which of course raised huge public interest, in pretty brief terms, after a decision had been made by Crown counsel. So there is nothing in it which suggests she as personally involved in the decision making.

“She provides information about the decisions that have been made and acted on.

“For my own part I don’t see anything in those letters which justifies any inference of impropriety on the part of the lord advocate.”

After the issue was raised in Holyrood – where Ms Bain was accused of misleading MSPs – Mr Wolffe said: “I think some of the allegations of impropriety against her were deeply unfair.”

He continued: “I would also say, having worked with her there, is no lawyer who is more committed to the integrity of the prosecution of crime in Scotland, and few lawyers who have done more for the administration of justice.”

Murrell, who was married to former Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon, was jailed for more than five years in June after he admitted embezzling more than £400,000 from the SNP.

MPs on the Scottish Affairs Committee are considering the dual role of the lord advocate, and Mr Swinney announced an independent review of the roles and responsibilities of Scotland’s law officers in September.

Mr Wolffe, who stressed he was giving evidence to the committee in a personal capacity, insisted there are “significant strengths in the current system”.

He added that people proposing changes to the dual role should be “clear-eyed about those strengths, and about the complexities and trade-offs involved in moving to an alternative model”.

The former lord advocate said people should have “absolute confidence” that under the current system the investigation and prosecution of crimes “remains robustly independent of political interference”.

Mr Wolffe said: “If the concern is about the independence of the prosecution of crime from political interference this committee should be confident that the prosecution of crime in Scotland is, has been and continues to be independent and undertaken with integrity.

“If the view is taken there needs to be change, so be it. That is for others.”