On Day 2 of Robert’s recent aborted trial on Breach of the Peace charges at Stonehaven Court, Aberdeenshire, Tuesday 15th November, we all noticed a solitary young reporter sitting in the press gallery to the left of the bench, scribbling away. It turned out he was from the Scottish Sun and presumably had been instructed to begin covering the story – great!
Most of the morning having been taken up with a closed consultation session between the concerned parties, to deal with the vexed issue of Edinburgh Procurator Fiscal Stephen McGowan’s being at once prosecutor in the case and also down to give witness evidence, proceedings in open court had only resumed at midday. They ground to a halt almost as soon as they began, however, with the announcement that Robert’s legal team was withdrawing from the case.
The lobby outside the courtroom was abuzz, as all of us grappled with the momentous implications of what had just occurred. I expected that the young journalist would want to catch some of this animated commentary and looked around for him, then was told he had just left. Immediately I chased down the stairs and caught up with him at the door of the building. Introducing myself as a spokesperson for Robert Green’s campaign, as Robert himself was tied up right now (he was with his solicitor), would he like to interview me, could I help clarify any details for him?
Surely if a reporter had been sent by his paper to a remote location such as Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire to begin covering a story with enough scandal in it to keep a tabloid such as The Sun going for months on end, his remit would be to get as much of the background, detail, commentary etc. as he could cram into his notebook. On its website the Scottish Sun assures us it is interested in “celebrity exclusives to medical miracles to cheating politicians – we want your stories on them all”. Well, here we had the top echelons of the Scottish establishment being caught cheating and lying and covering up serious crime of which the victims were children including disabled children, with one heroic Englishman, Robert Green prepared to go to any lengths to expose the miscreants, as had been proved yet again that week at Stonehaven.
But no, the Scottish Sun reporter thanked me politely, observing that “nothing much has happened this morning, has it, perhaps there’ll be more next week.”
NOTHING MUCH HAS HAPPENED THIS MORNING. The only conclusion to be drawn from this massive understatement is that the young reporter from the Scottish Sun was either still a bit wet behind the ears, or he was the first jackal in the pack baying for Robert’s blood and had been told he could go all out for him in 1st edition Wednesday 16th November. Provided Green had changed his plea from ‘Not Guilty’ to ‘Guilty’, as had been urged by his departing Counsel. When he saw his mission could not be fulfilled and he could not provide the required copy, the last thing he wanted to do was to hang about talking to Green’s supporters.
On the train back to London I ruminated on everything I’d witnessed in the course of my brief mid-November sojourn in Stonehaven, north Scotland, including the cameo appearance, so to speak, of this lone journalist. Clearly, he’d gone to Stonehaven Sheriff Court early in the morning on Day 2 of the Trial expecting to get a story and then hadn’t got the said story, however he put that into words. The fact that the court had made it clear that the Tuesday session was taking place solely to consider one issue, the position of Stephen McGowan and that that therefore was the only official story that could be written about seemed to be of no concern to him. Which made it clear what story he’d expected to get, and why having lost that he was then so disinterested in acquiring ‘further details’ of any alternative story.
But much more significantly, the presence in the proceedings of this solitary journalist from a major popular organ begged the question as to who exactly had put him up to the possibility there might be such a story to be got?
Which is what Robert Green has been trying to ask the Crown Office, but the staff there are under strict instruction not to put him through to anyone of significance. http://holliedemandsjustice-robertgreensblog.blogspot.com/