Alex Salmond trial blogger jailed for eight months

A former UK diplomat has been jailed for eight months over blogs he wrote about the trial of Alex Salmond.

Craig Murray - a former ambassador to Uzbekistan - posted a series of articles online about the former first minister's High Court trial in 2020.

Prosecutors raised concerns that complainers could be identified via his writing, breaching a court order.

The court has given Murray's lawyers a period of three weeks to submit an appeal.

Lady Dorrian said Murray's actions had struck "at the heart of the fair administration of justice" and created a real risk that complainers would be reluctant to come forward in future cases, particularly high-profile ones.

Murray, a former rector at Dundee University, had attended two days of the former first minister's High Court trial last March over sexual assault allegations, and wrote a series of blogs about it.

The judge had made an order during the trial to prohibit the identity of the women involved - or any information which could lead to them being identified - from being disclosed.

During the virtual sentencing, Lady Dorian said Murray knew there were court orders giving the women anonymity and he was "relishing" the potential disclosure of their identities.

She said Murray deliberately risked jigsaw identification and that revealing complainers' identities was "abhorrent".

She added that it was "particularly so, given the enormous publicity which the case in question attracted and continues to attract".

Murray's offending blog posts and tweets were written over a period of a month and remained up, unredacted, despite the blogger being told they could potentially lead to the identification of women who had made complaints about Mr Salmond, who was eventually acquitted of all 13 sexual assault charges.

Lady Dorrian said: "It appears from the posts and articles that he was in fact relishing the task he set himself, which was essentially to allow the identities of complainers to be discerned - which he thought was in the public interest - in a way which did not attract sanction."

She added: "These actions create a real risk that complainers may be reluctant to come forward in future cases, particularly where the case may be high profile or likely to attract significant publicity.

"The actions strike at the heart of the fair administration of justice.

"Notwithstanding the previous character of the respondent and his health issues, we do not think we can dispose of this case other than by way of a sentence of imprisonment."

Murray was initially given 48 hours to hand himself in to a police station, but after a challenge by his lawyer Roddy Dunlop QC, this was extended to three weeks so he can appeal the sentence, although he has to surrender his passport.

In his previous mitigation submission, Mr Dunlop said Murray was a man of "impeccable character" and previously "untarnished reputation", and said it was no exaggeration to say the retired diplomat was already suffering "significant punishment" from the impact of the case.

Mr Dunlop said sending Murray to prison would be "harsh to the point of being disproportionate", and he urged judges to deal with the matter by way of a fine.

He said: "Allowing that the finding of contempt has been ruled by this court to be justified, the question is whether, given all the circumstances, that justification extends yet further to countenancing imprisonment, to taking a retired diplomat with an exemplary background away from his wife, his 11-year-old son, and his baby.

"For what purpose? The response might well be pour decourager les autres [French for to discourage others] If that is the purpose, job done. Mr Murray's blogging is inevitably hamstrung by the ruling itself, the decision is and has been widely publicised.

"If anyone out there thinks that playing with fire in the field of jigsaw identification is a zero-sum game, their views have been disabused by the ruling this court has already made."