A FORMER SNP councillor has been awarded £40,000 in damages after an “outrageous” accusation of racism was made against her amid party infighting.
Julie McAnulty, who served as a North Lanarkshire councillor from 2012 to 2017, was targeted in a smear campaign as factions in the Lanarkshire SNP clashed.
She said she has been “vindicated” after winning a defamation case in the Court of Session against Sheena McCulloch, a dog groomer who works for Uddingston and Bellshill MSP Richard Lyle.
In early 2016, McCulloch falsely alleged McAnulty referred to “Pakis” in the SNP. The remark was reported by the Daily Record, which published the front page story “’Get the Pakis out of the party’: SNP Councillor Julie McAnulty at the centre of a second race row”.
The music teacher and church organist, who denied the claims, told the court that the day the story ran was the worst of her life.
She was immediately suspended from the SNP and was later blocked from standing for Holyrood and deselected as an SNP council candidate. She quit the party in 2017.
But Uist, who heard the case over five days in April and June, dismissed the allegations, which he said was “activated by malice and ill-will”.
He concluded McAnulty could only have made the comment to McCulloch if she had “taken complete leave of her senses” since each belonged to rival factions within the SNP.
McAnulty told the court that she and McCulloch were on opposite sides of a “toxic” party dispute. She was aligned with Coatbridge MP Phil Boswell and his supporters, who sought reform in the local party.
Meanwhile, McCulloch was said to be in a rival set alongside Lyle, Coatbridge MSP Fulton MacGregor, former North Lanarkshire councillor Imtiaz Majid, and current NLC Councillor Allan Stubbs, who aimed to remain in charge of the local party administration.
Lord Uist said he was convinced of McAnulty’s credibility while deeming her key witness, SNP councillor Steven Bonnar, to be “entirely honest and reliable” when he told the court McAnulty did not make racist remarks in the car.
The judge described McCulloch as an “unforthcoming witness” and dismissed her evidence outright.
He accepted McAnulty’s case on seven grounds, including concerns about the delay between McCulloch allegedly hearing the comment in June 2015 and reporting it to the SNP in February 2016.
McCulloch’s decision to copy around 12 people, who were not involved in party regulation, into the email complaint was also questioned. The email was later leaked to the Daily Record.
“In my judgment the complaint was circulated to these other recipients out of malice or ill-will on the part of the defender, in order to cause as much damage as possible to the pursuer,” Uist commented.
The judge also did “not accept the pursuer has generally racist views” and believed she did not say “Pakis”.
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