LORD Advocate James Wolffe yesterday confirmed the cost to the taxpayer of the malicious prosecution cases brought by two of the administrators of Rangers FC.
As we exclusively revealed in the Sunday National and National last month, a total of just over £24 million has been paid to David Whitehouse and Paul Clark, with each receiving £10.5m in damages and legal expenses totalling just over £3m.
The National has also revealed that the two men’s employers, insolvency specialists Duff & Phelps, are seeking damages for corporate reputational damage said by one source to be worth “tens of millions”.
In addition, another former Rangers administrator David Grier has taken actions for malicious prosecution and wrongful arrest while former club chief executive Charles Green and former director Imran Ahmad are also due millions in damages for their admitted malicious prosecutions.
The figures were revealed in a letter to MSP Adam Tompkins, chair of Holyrood’s Justice Committee’ from the Lord Advocate who said the decision not to proceed with the prosecutions that began in 2014 was taken in May, 2016, when Frank Mulholland QC was Lord Advocate – he is now judge Lord Mulholland.
After the Appeal Court allowed the Lord Advocate to be sued, he instructed a legal team, including external counsel, to investigate the prosecution.
The Lord Advocate stated: “As a result of those investigations, I accepted: (i) that, so far as these two pursuers (Whitehouse and Clark) were concerned, the charges against them lacked objective probable cause; and (ii) that, so far as these two pursuers were concerned, certain of the prosecution decisions in this case met the legal test for a malicious prosecution.
“I should make clear that the legal test for a malicious prosecution can, in certain circumstances, be met even though no individual had “malice” in the ordinary sense of a spiteful motive against the pursuers.
“Following the admissions of liability on my behalf, mediations took place between each of the two pursuers and my representatives. Following the production, analysis and scrutiny of material vouching the losses sustained by each of the pursuers as a result of their prosecution, an agreement was reached with each pursuer that he would be paid a sum by way of damages of £10.5 million.
“Each of these pursuers was a very high earning individual, and the settlement figure, in each case, reflected the actual loss which the pursuer was able to demonstrate had been caused to him by the wrongful prosecutions.
“In addition to these payments by way of damages, interim payments have been made to each of the pursuers in respect of legal expenses. ”
They have been paid £3,086,250. The final expenses bill has still to be calculated as have the costs of defending the actions.
Scottish Conservative shadow finance secretary Murdo Fraser said: “We still don’t know how much taxpayers’ money will be spent compensating innocent men for the malicious actions of the Crown Office. Given the financial scale of this scandal, and the unprecedented abuse of state power, anything short of a public inquiry would not be good enough.
“With the Lord Advocate in the SNP Cabinet, there have long been concerns about the politicisation of Scotland’s criminal justice system.
“Full disclosure is required in order to repair public trust.”
David Whitehouse rold The National: “I am disappointed the Lord Advocate has chosen to give a highly selective summary to the Justice Committee. From the start of the civil proceedings in 2016, he insisted the prosecution had been based on sufficient evidence, a position that was maintained – wrongly – until August 2020. The claim of immunity was only introduced some eight months after the action was raised.
"The Lord Advocate says my prosecution was not ‘spiteful’. But according to the very definition he relied on, malice means the prosecutor ‘wilfully perverted or abused’ his office or the criminal justice system. That this could happen in Scotland is a scandal.”
The Lord Advocate confirmed he will be making a statement to the Holyrood Parliament sometime this week.
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