Robert Green Remembered

Robert Green, tireless campaigner against child abuse, corruption and injustice, died on 11 April 2019 after a short illness.

An inspiration to many, he suffered at the hands of the Scottish state for his defence of Hollie Greig and her mother Ann.

One of Robert's supporters, when told of the news, summed it up as follows:

"He was a noble man, a good man, and a fearless man."

The following is a letter I wrote to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission on Robert's behalf; it details why he was innocent of any crime. It was rejected by the the Commissioner. Today is a good day for it to be made public.

One name, that of the sheriff (Scots judge) accused by Hollie Greig of being part of the paedophile and Satanist rape gang, has been redacted.

27 April 2018
Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission
Portland House
17 Renfield Street
Glasgow
G2 5AH

 

Dear Sirs,

 

Application on behalf of George Robert Green esq.
Case reference SH10000189

 

Based on the evidence before me, which is outlined below, I believe that Mr. George Robert Green has suffered a miscarriage of justice warranting reference of his whole case to the High Court. Further, I argue in the following text that it is strongly in the interest of justice that a reference should be made.

Introduction

Mr. Green, a man of hitherto unblemished character, was arrested on 12 February 2010 in Aberdeen. At the time, Mr. Green (then aged 63) was a prospective candidate for the parliamentary general election of 2010 in the constituency of Aberdeen South. On the same day he was charged with breach of the peace. Upon summary trial at Stonehaven Sheriff Court, Mr. Green was convicted (on 24 January 2012) of breach of the peace and breach of bail conditions and sentenced (on 17 February 2012) to a total of 12 months’ imprisonment. He served three months at HMP Aberdeen (formerly known as Craiginches) followed by three months on license.

Flawed from the outset, this process commenced with the arrest of Mr. Green on entirely different grounds. When arrested, just off Union Street, by DS Drummond and DC Crowder of Grampian Police, Mr. Green was informed that he had breached an interlocutor. Being a resident of a foreign jurisdiction, that of England, Mr. Green was unfamiliar with this terminology and the officers concerned did not explain the arrest in terms Mr. Green could understand. Handcuffed, he was removed to the cells at Aberdeen police station in Queen Street, where he was held for a total of four days in solitary confinement.

When Mr. Green was questioned by the officers, he was asked when he had arrived in Aberdeen. He replied that he had arrived by train from Warrington, via Edinburgh, at 19:00 hrs. the previous evening, 11 February. This response caused some consternation on the part of the two aforenamed police officers. Several hours later, an agent from the Crown Office arrived from Edinburgh with documentation alleging breach of the peace, an entirely different charge. It was not until Mr. Green returned home to Warrington on 15 February to find an interlocutor document at his home that the events started to reveal themselves. This order prohibited Mr. Green from traveling to Aberdeen. It had been delivered to Mr. Green’s home at 21:00 hrs. on 11 February, two hours after he had arrived in Aberdeen.

Naturally, Mr. Green was totally unaware of the existence of this document. Therefore Mr. Green’s arrest was entirely fraudulent, being for non-compliance with an interlocutor that was never properly served, and, of which he could have had no knowledge. All the following narrative flows from this false arrest and is thus fruit of this poisonous tree. Had the order been properly served, Mr. Green would have remained in Warrington and sought professional legal advice, and none of the following would have occurred.

This situation is all the more grievous given the clear understanding of the police officers concerned that the arrest was false and specious as soon as Mr. Green confirmed his recent movements. To have the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service then collude with Grampian Police to bring separate and unrelated charges is, in itself, an admission that these parties already knew that Mr. Green had been unlawfully detained but had decided to conceal this information from him.

During his arrest, questioning and charge, Mr. Green was denied access to legal representation despite asking specifically and repeatedly to see a lawyer. “This is Scotland,” he was told; “we decide when you see a lawyer.” This indeed was the common practice in Scotland at the time, practice subsequently found to be unlawful by the Supreme Court in the landmark Peter Cadder case. It seems probable, even certain, that competent legal advice would have seen Mr. Green released when the reason for his arrest was discovered to be without merit. Thus the original offence against Mr. Green’s human rights was compounded by the later denial of legal representation and advice.

The absence of good faith on the part of the Crown Office and of Grampian Police is confirmed by the subsequent falsification of the records of the arrest, which read that Mr. Green was “cautioned and detained in connection with terms of Section 14 of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995 in relation to a beach of the peace”. This is false.

It is worthy of note that the charge eventually brought was the oft criticised one of breach of the peace. The professional concerns which exist over the frequent abuse of this charge are examined in the Scots Criminal Law and Practice text Breach of the Peace (1990) by M. G. A. Christie, Solicitor and Lecturer in Private Law at the University of Aberdeen. He states:

But regrettably, the crime has been allowed to extend itself to eccentric and trivial behaviours (which happen to be disapproved of by some persons—very often the police) and to become an almost limitless instrument of social control. It is difficult to ascribe blame to any single source for these undesirable developments. But it is thought that these extensions will hardly be constrained without the active cooperation of the accused persons themselves and their agents. In short, too may are persuaded, or persuade themselves, that the charges against them are not worth disputing—even when those charges are of the most dubious colour.

“Charges of the most dubious colour” seems a most apt phrase in this case.

Background

As this juncture, it is necessary to review some of the background to these particular events if a full understanding is to be achieved. Mr. Green was at the time coordinating and leading a mass public campaign on behalf of Anne and Hollie Greig. Hollie, a young woman with Down syndrome, had been subject to sexual abuse and had been compensated by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority with a cash payment of £13,500.

This was made on the basis of substantial expert witness testimony, including that of Dr. Jack Boyle and Dr. Eva Harding, and of the investigatory work of Grampian Police, who considered her “a reliable and credible witness to the best of her ability and an entirely innocent victim”. One of the alleged perpetrators of sexual abuse named by Hollie was Aberdeen Sheriff xxxxxxxx. The aforementioned interlocutor was issued on behalf of Sheriff xxxxxxxx in order that Mr. Green’s campaign could not proceed with his election candidature.

Thus it is necessary to consider the central role of Sheriff xxxxxxxx with respect to two issues: firstly, his privileged position in the criminal justice system in Aberdeen, and secondly, his pretension of a right to interfere with the political process by which parliament is elected. Viewed in its own right, this constitutes a usurpation of the sovereign rights of the people to choose their representatives and make their laws.

To look first at the relationship between Sheriff xxxxxxxx and Grampian Police, it is germane that the agent of Sheriff xxxxxxxx was covertly filming Mr. Green in Union Street and communicating with the two arresting police officers. This raises several concerns. Firstly, to what extent may a sheriff, or similar established figure in the criminal justice system, use his privilege and connections in order to secure special treatment by police officers? What checks and balances must exist to maintain equality before the law and avoid those in high legal positions being above the law or a law unto themselves?

Secondly, it seems certain, given their actions, that the police officers, at the time of Mr. Green’s arrest, believed the interlocutor to have been properly served and flagrantly breached. I can see no reasonable conclusion other than that this was how the matter had been represented to the police by Sheriff xxxxxxxx or his agents. What I do not know, and have no reasonable expectation of being able to discover, is whether Sheriff xxxxxxxx knew of the true situation or not. There seems at least a possibility that Grampian Police were wilfully misled in order to induce them to make the arrest.

Next, looking at the larger question of democratic freedom, I would suggest that the situation which has here arisen, i.e. the exclusion of a parliamentary candidate, and the effective termination of his campaign, by a well-connected local law officer, has obvious and unacceptable implications for parliamentary democracy. As the people are sovereign in a common-law jurisdiction such as Scotland, and thus have the right to determine their laws, and since this right is generally interpreted as a right to elect representatives to a legislating parliament, the interruption of this process by an officer of the court seems to evince such fundamental conflicts and erosion of safeguards as to be completely beyond the scope of lawful behaviour.

As much of the foregoing is based on the fact that the interlocutor was never served on Mr. Green, it is worthy of note that this fact has been accepted by the Court of Session [Scotland's supreme civil court]. Mr. Green appealed against the taxation charges [Scots legal fees] levied against him by Sheriff xxxxxxxx, in particular the charges for serving the interlocutor. These charges were duly removed by the Court, as it was accepted that the documents concerned had never been served.

Turning now to the period between Mr. Green’s arrest and trial, several matters are worthy of note. This first is that while the case was originally a solemn procedure, it was reduced to a summary process by the Aberdeen Procurator Fiscal. This was against the wishes of Mr. Green and was also contrary to his best interests, as determined by his legal advisor, who concluded that no jury would ever convict him on the basis of the evidence presentable in this case. Mr. Green formally complained about this change, as being denied a jury would be to his serious disadvantage.

It is noteworthy that, despite the decrease in maximum custodial sentence which this procedural reduction entailed (from five years to one), Mr. Green, so convinced of his innocence, sought the solemn procedure [the court with severer sentencing powers] and the judgment of a jury of his peers nevertheless. Against the background of official collusion described above, the decision of the Procurator Fiscal to opt for a summary procedure in front of a single sheriff is, at the very least, concerning. As will become clear in the subsequent narrative, Mr. Green’s concerns over this unwanted change proved prescient.

A further consequence of the change from solemn to summary was the loss of legal aid support for Mr. Green. This removed Mr. Green’s legal defence team, led by Donald Findlay QC, and resulted in Mr. Green briefly having to defend himself. On 13 April 2011, Mr. Green appeared in Stonehaven Sheriff Court, facing PF [Procurator Fiscal, Scottish state prosecutor] Anne Currie. Ms. Currie’s response was to seek an accelerated process and an early trial date commencing on 5 June 2011. This remarkable position, on the face of it completely indefensible in terms of natural justice, was defended by Ms. Currie on the basis of an assertion that fifty people had been distressed by Mr. Green’s campaign and of those, she stated, half were suffering from trauma as a result.

When, subsequently, legal aid was restored, Mr. Green’s legal team challenged the PF (then Mr. McGowan) to produce medical evidence of trauma in the twenty-five people ostensibly severely affected. Mr. McGowan conceded that no such evidence existed. It therefore seems undeniable that Ms. Currie had attempted to mislead the court as to the condition of the alleged victims in order to place Mr. Green’s defence at yet further disadvantage.

In an extraordinary twist, legal aid was only restored after Mr. Green discovered that the Head of Legal Services in the Scottish Legal Aid Board, Mr. Douglas Haggarty was in fact a convicted sex offender. Mr Green, considering that this fact may occasioned the sudden denial of legal aid, protested publicly about this situation. Once public attention was drawn to this situation, Mr. Green’s legal aid was restored, as suddenly as it had been removed.

Pre-Trial

Mr. Green’s trial was originally set for November 2011 and his senior counsel was Frances McMenamin QC. During the months leading up to the trial, Ms. McMenamin worked with Mr. Green on his defence, which was predicated on a plea of not guilty. During this period Mr. Green’s defence took robust form, and this included the unusual step of citing Procurator Fiscal Stephen McGowan as a chief witness for the defence (more detail on the reasons for this follows below). Within hours of this move, Ms. McMenamin asked to meet with Mr. Green in the presence of junior counsel John McLoughlin and solicitor Gerry Sweeney.

At this meeting, she immediately told Mr. Green that she was only prepared to represent him on the basis that he change his plea to guilty. The reason for this sudden volte-face was a meeting she had had with the trial judge, Sheriff Principal Edward Bowen, following the citation of PF McGowan. She stated that the Sheriff had “thrown down” all of Mr. Green’s evidence, including expert witness statements and the document which formed the basis of PF McGowan’s having been cited. “Thrown down”, she explained, was a literal description of what the Sheriff had done: he had thrown the stack of documents constituting the defence across his desk to illustrate his pertinent refusal to consider the defence documentation.

As all of the documents that Ms. McMenamin (and her client Mr. Green) had relied upon for the defence were to be excluded by the Sheriff, Ms. McMenamin concluded that she could only proceed if Mr. Green were to plead guilty. Mr. Green questioned this decision and Ms. McMenamin appeared extremely uncomfortable; she could not explain this sequence of events further or give a rational explanation for the arbitrary nature of the sudden decision by the Sheriff. Mr. Green, considering himself entirely innocent, and thus refusing to plead guilty, was left with no option other than to dismiss Ms. McMenamin from his defence team. Mr. Sweeney continued to offer his support as an amicus curiæ until Mr. Green could assemble a replacement legal defence team.

I have spoken to a member of the public gallery, Mr. Neil McKechnie of Dunblane, who was present at a procedural hearing (which Mr. Green was not required to attend). The Sheriff stated in this hearing that he had issued an ultimatum to Ms. McMenamin. The exact nature of this ultimatum is not known to me, but the entire sequence of events would seem to call into question the fairness of the trial and impartiality of the Sheriff.

It is of course a fact that Ms. Frances McMenamin QC is now a member of your board and, thus, measures must be in place to prevent any conflict of interest between her role as SCCRC board member and her role in this case, where she is likely to be called to give evidence of the pressures that she faced in defending Mr. Green and the decisions that she made in the immediate aftermath of citing PF McGowan.

At this juncture, it is necessary to understand Mr. Green’s reasons for citing PF McGowan as defence witness number one. The main reason was a letter dated 4 December 2009 to Anne Greig in which Mr. McGowan stated that the former Procurator Fiscal in Aberdeen (and later Lord Advocate) Elish Angiolini was not involved in the case concerning Hollie Grieg, and was thus not responsible for the failure to carry out a thorough investigation into the abuse suffered by Hollie.

Mr. Green was (and is) in possession of official correspondence which refutes this position and shows Ms. Angiolini to have had direct involvement with the case in 2000 and 2001. This was key to the defence because Mr. Green’s subsequent actions were prompted by the failure of the Crown Office, then under the direction of Lord Advocate Elish Angiolini, to take appropriate action over the abuse of Hollie Greig. The correspondence shows that when the initial investigation failed to progress in 2000/2001; this was also under the direction of then-Fiscal Elish Angiolini.

This should have been significant in the court’s deliberations when deciding whether Mr. Green’s actions were those of a reasonable and law-abiding concerned member of the public or were in some way criminal. It was Mr. Green’s position that the failure of the authorities (under Elish Angiolini’s direction) was so egregious and left the risk posed to the public at such a severe level, that his campaign was necessary to protect vulnerable children. Furthermore, he considered it his Christian duty, given the information at his disposal, to act to prevent other children being similarly abused. All of this relevant correspondence was included in the bundle of defence evidence cast aside by Sheriff Bowen. Even in breach of the peace cases, it is necessary to demonstrate mens rea, or evil intent. Mr. Green’s actual intent does not appear to have been considered.

Since the trial, further information has come to light and Mr. Kenny MacAskill, former Justice Secretary, and the Justice Directorate have both confirmed Elish Angiolini’s key role in the 2009 decision not to proceed on the Hollie Greig case. This blatantly contradicts correspondence from the Crown Office concerning the handling of the case. These events reinforce Mr Green’s contention that he was acting correctly, dutifully and honourably in the face of official deceit, dissembling and cover-up.

Sheriff Bowen, shortly after the events leading up to Frances McMenamin being dismissed from Mr. Green’s defence team, decided to refuse the defence permission to have Mr. McGowan as a witness.

Ms. McMenanin’s replacement as senior counsel was Gary Allan QC. Mr. Green met with his legal team, consisting of Mr. Allan QC, Mr. Macleod (junior counsel) and his new solicitor Frances McCartney, in Glasgow in late 2011. At this meeting he insisted that Elish Angiolini should now be called as the primary witness for the defence and should be cited accordingly. Mr. Allan refused to take Mr. Green’s instructions on this matter, claiming that Ms. Angiolini would simply refuse to answer any question that might incriminate her.

Mr. Green’s view—that the former Lord Advocate refusing to answer questions concerning a child rape case, on oath, in open court, on the grounds that she may incriminate herself—would be devastating for the prosecution case, was not shared by Mr. Allan. Mr. Allan further disclosed that he had known Ms. Angiolini well for thirty years. As an impasse had been reached, Mr. Green dismissed Mr. Allan immediately for failing to take his instructions.

The next replacement senior counsel was Andrew Lamb QC, who was prepared to take Mr. Green’s instructions and who agreed that the best interests of the defence would be served by citing Elish Angiolini. This was done at the next court hearing and Sheriff Bowen decided to consider the matter. At the subsequent hearing, it was announced that Elish Angiolini had refused to appear before the court. This refusal was supported by Sheriff Bowen and thus the defence was deprived of a second key witness.

Trial

The trial commenced on 16 January 2012 at Stonehaven before Sheriff Principal Edward Farquhar Bowen. The prosecution cited 36 witnesses, none of whom was refused by Sheriff Bowen. The defence cited three witnesses, two of whom were refused. The single witness allowed was a journalist who had reported on the Hollie Greig case.

Cross-examination of DC Lisa Evans of Grampian Police, the investigating officer who had taken the evidence from Hollie Greig on 8 September 2009, revealed that the police had not interviewed any of the persons named by Hollie as responsible for her abuse and rape following the September interview. Moreover, nine of the persons named by Hollie as her abusers were prosecution witnesses; all were asked whether they had been questioned by the police; all confirmed that they had not been interviewed.

Two further points are worthy of note concerning the trial.

Firstly, it became known sometime after the hearing that Grampian Police had in their possession an intelligence report concerning two of the persons accused by Hollie Greig of rape and molestation. This report stated that the two individuals were "believed to have a predilection for very young girls". This document was not provided to the defence.

Secondly, some documents seized by the police were never returned to Mr. Green, hampering his defence; most notable among these was the blue notebook in which he made a record of Hollie’s long interview in which she consistently and clearly named and described her abusers. This document has never been returned to Mr. Green; it has simply vanished.

On 24 January, Sheriff Bowen found Mr. Green guilty of breach of the peace and breach of bail conditions. The sentencing hearing was set for 17 February 2012.

In the interim period, between the conviction and the sentencing hearing, Mr. Green discovered that Sheriff Bowen had failed to disclose his ten-year acquaintanceship with Elish Angiolini from serving on the Northern Lighthouse Board. It transpired that they had both attended at least three meetings of the Northern Lighthouse Board during the period between Mr. Green’s arrest and their resignations from the Board which were tendered on 5 and 6 May 2011 respectively.

On the day of the sentencing hearing, Mr. Green challenged Sheriff Bowen concerning his relationship with Ms. Angiolini and his concealment of this association when deciding on the defence motion citing her as a witness. Mr. Green stated that this undisclosed relationship must be reasonably considered to represent a conflict of interest. He asked the Sheriff to recuse himself. He also made it clear that, had the situation been known earlier, he would have called for a recusal at the outset of the proceedings. Sheriff Bowen proceeded with the sentencing regardless.

Mr. Green’s counsel also handed over more than two hundred letters of support from concerned members of the public, many of them professionals. After a fifteen minute recess, the Sheriff proceeded to hand down the sentence which was the maximum permitted for a summary trial—one year's imprisonment.

A point to note concerning Mr. Green’s request for recusal of the Sheriffs is that this was subsequently considered by the independent Judicial Complaints Reviewer, Moi Ali, who found fifteen errors in the proceedings, all to Mr. Green’s disadvantage. Specifically concerning the undisclosed association between Sheriff Bowen and Elish Angiolini, the Judicial Complaints Reviewer stated; “I believe that the Judicial Office should have referred this aspect of your complaint to the Disciplinary Judge for consideration under rule 10.”

In his sentencing comments, Sheriff Bowen made statements of a racially or ethnically discriminatory nature concerning Mr. Green. These were witnessed by those present in court, several of whom I have spoken to. The court transcript, however, entirely omits the critical phrases, which, if recorded would show sufficient bias for an appeal to be almost certainly successful. This situation I explored in detail in an 18 December 2014 letter to Lord President Gill [the then head of the Scottish judiciary], a copy of which is attached, along with the inaccurate official record of the sentencing statements.

This matter was the subject of a separate complaint by Mr. Green, ordered by Lord Eassie and heard by Lady Smith. There is in existence an audio recording of the trial which would either prove the transcript to be in error or, even more worrying, would provide forensic evidence of tampering. However, the tape of trial was withheld from Mr. Green by Lady Smith and subsequent requests by Mr. Green’s former MP (and minister of the Crown), David Mowat (Conservative), and Mr. Green’s current MP, Faisal Rashid (Labour), for a copy of the recording have likewise been rejected by Lady Smith.

In his short and intemperate sentencing statement, Sheriff Bowen had but one criticism for the Crown, ironically one shared by Mr. Green. Sheriff Bowen said, “If the Crown are to be criticised for anything in this matter it is not bringing the case on indictment where you could have been subject to further penalties.” Had the Sheriff and Mr. Green been granted their wish for the case to be heard on indictment, before a jury, we would not, I am convinced, be where we are today.

One final comment of Sheriff Bowen’s is worthy of note. He said to Mr. Green, “By your campaign you have sought to undermine the criminal justice system and the government of Scotland as a whole.” As none of this was in evidence, this is, on surface of it, a strange statement. For reasons I will explain in the conclusion to this letter, the Sheriff was here addressing matters not patently evident but nevertheless underpinning this case, which is so much more than a simple, summary breach of the peace trial. 

Post-Trial

Immediately following the conviction, Mr. Green’s solicitor, Patrick Campbell and Co., applied for leave to appeal. This application was rejected by Lord Bonomy.

In this regard, the timescale is significant because of the overlapping events and decisions arising from the [UK] Supreme Court ruling in Cadder v. HM Advocate. The Supreme Court ruled in October 2010, and the Scottish Government was forced to bring in emergency legislation to cope with the fallout. The Scotsman reported (20 June 2013) that “By February the following year, almost 900 suspected criminals, including alleged rapists, had walked free, after prosecutors were forced to drop charges against them because of the Cadder ruling. Charges of sexual assault, robbery and possession of firearms were also among 867 dropped in just three months.”  Had leave for appeal been granted, the question of Mr. Green’s detention without access to a lawyer in the hours before he was charged on solemn indictment (as it was then) would have been open to examination; for, as the Supreme Court ruled:

“convictions that have become final because they were not appealed timeously, and appeals that have been finally disposed of by the High Court of Justiciary, must be treated as incapable of being brought under review on the ground that there was a miscarriage of justice because the accused did not have access to a solicitor while he was detained prior to the police interview. The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission must make up its own mind, if it is asked to do so, as to whether it would be in the public interest for those cases to be referred to the High Court. It will be for the appeal court to decide what course it ought to take if a reference were to be made to it on those grounds by the Commission.” (UK Supreme Court 2010, para 62)

It also must be noted that the two police officers who interviewed Mr. Green, and who repeatedly denied his request for legal representation on the grounds that “this is Scotland” , both gave evidence for the prosecution at Mr. Green’s trial. This evidence included statements obtained from the interview conducted in the absence of legal representation. As this interview took place in February 2010, before the Cadder ruling, it was normal practice at the time. However, by the time they gave evidence in January 2012, the Supreme Court had long since ruled this practice unlawful and a breach of the right to a fair trial under Article 6 of the ECHR. Why the court allowed this to proceed is unknown and unexplained.

The sentencing of Mr. Green included the imposition of a non-harassment order, which later formed the basis of a further action against him. There are many aspects of the later action that are of concern, but for the moment I will leave the narrative at this point with leave to appeal denied, since, in the event that this conviction is overturned, the non-harassment order and related actions would surely fall as a consequence.

Conclusion

To summarise, Mr. Green was arrested on entirely spurious grounds, held for days and denied legal representation during his questioning. The sequence of events has the colour of a most odious conspiracy to silence Mr. Green and end his campaign for a proper investigation into the Hollie Greig case. He was subsequently denied legal aid at critical times in his defence and had a trial before a judge of such bias as would shame a nation with a history of jurisprudence much inferior to that of Scotland. He was then denied leave to appeal. It seems clear that Mr. Green has suffered a miscarriage of justice, that his conviction is unsafe and that his record should be expunged.

Although a summary breach of the peace trial may seem a small matter for an appeal to the High Court, the issues on display here are of the greatest importance to our nation and our justice system. To what extent are insiders, well connected to police and courts, permitted to wield that influence to protect their own private interests? What separation of powers is present to ensure that judges, and similar men and women of influence, are not above the law?

Mr. Green’s case has attracted, and will continue to, attract, support both from the public and at the highest political levels (for example a UK parliamentarian nominated Mr. Green for the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize) because of the importance of the issues it raises. When institutions fail to protect the innocent, and ordinary men and women speak out against the injustice, are they themselves to be protected from the state apparatus, or are they to be victims in their turn?

In short, this case is not, as Sheriff Bowen stated, about an attempt by Mr. Green to “undermine the criminal justice system and the Government of Scotland as a whole”. Nevertheless, it does as a case raise questions about the fitness of that criminal justice system and the legitimacy of that government. For we, as a sovereign people, must be served by the institutions we create, not oppressed by them. As a Scot and resident of this land, I find this question is of the greatest import.

I therefore request that you undertake a full review and inquiry into this case and refer the matter to the High Court as outlined in clause 194(c) of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995.

Mr. Green is fully aware of the contents of this letter and consents to my writing on his behalf. He will fully cooperate with your work, offer any assistance you require and furnish you with any evidence in his possession.

Yours faithfully

David Scott BEng, CEng, MIStructE, MICE, MIES
Cc: Secretary of State for Scotland

 

This appeal was to no avail. But before a higher judge, Robert Green will get justice. I read the following to him a few hours before his death:

Hearken unto me, my people; and give ear unto me, O my nation: for a law shall proceed from me, and I will make my judgment to rest for a light of the people.

My righteousness is near; my salvation is gone forth, and mine arms shall judge the people; the isles shall wait upon me, and on mine arm shall they trust.

Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath: for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner: but my salvation shall be for ever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished.

Hearken unto me, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law; fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be ye afraid of their revilings. 

For the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool: but my righteousness shall be for ever, and my salvation from generation to generation.

Isaiah 51; 4-8

 

Robert Green: 17 March 1946 – 11 April 2019.
Rest in peace.