On perjury...

Perjury in Scots law is not lying under oath. Or not only lying under oath. I suspect many folk will be goggling at the news that Andy Coulson has been acquitted of giving perjured evidence in the case of Her Majesty's Advocate v Sheridan. The judge upheld a "no case to answer" submission by the defence on Monday. The news has been embargoed to allow the Crown to appeal against this decision. They declined to do so. Some supporters of Mr Sheridan took the opportunity to get their retaliation in first, under the veil of the Contempt of Court Act. Today, the jury was sent home without giving a verdict. Coulson is free.

Lord Burns held that Coulson's evidence was not relevant to the central issues in the Sheridan trial.  The judicial authorities have published the judge's explanation to the jury, and a longer note of reasons, explaining the decision. 

"After  two  days  of  legal  submissions  last  week  and  having  considered  the  matter,  I  decided  that  the  crown  had  not  led  sufficient   evidence   to   satisfy   me   that   the   allegedly   false  evidence was relevant to proof of the charge in Mr Sheridan’s  trial or to Mr Coulson’s credibility at that trial." 

As Lord Burns explains today, the lie must be relevant, going to the pith and substance of the earlier trial. And establishing that Coulson's dishonest testimony was relevant to the Sheridan case always looked a bit tricky. As far back as 2012, it was a point I made, and a point much more fully explored by the late Paul McConville on his Random Thoughts on Scots Law blog.  Folk now crying "conspiracy" should bear that in mind. This isn't corruption, it is the law. It isn't an expensive legal trick or a loophole. It is a point which any decent defence lawyer would make.

As this blog has consistently pointed out, against considerable misinformation encouraged by the ex MSP and his sympathisers, Tommy Sheridan was not convicted on the evidence of Mr Coulson.  The Crown did not rely on his testimony. Indeed, they disowned it. Coulson was a defence witness, with no knowledge of the key allegations made in the indictment against Mr Sheridan.

Go back to the charge sheet. Even if Coulson lied about his knowledge of phone hacking, how is this relevant to an indictment, alleging that you had attended a Mancunian knocking shop for a companionable evening, had a string of affairs, told your former party comrades about doing so, and lied under oath, in court, in dishonest pursuit of a significant sum of money, about your sojourning, your womenising and your confessions?

Had Mr Sheridan not sacked his lawyers, and conducted the case himself, Coulson would likely not have been called to give evidence. But he did give evidence. And on the evidence, Andy Coulson may well have lied under oath in the High Court about his knowledge of phone hacking in the News of the World. But mark this well: Coulson has not been acquitted of lying under oath today, but of perjury. As Lord Burns concluded today, "not every lie amounts to perjury." Not under the law of Scotland. A strange conclusion to a long case? An outcome which is liable to hold the common law crime of perjury up to public ridicule? Did the Crown screw up in failing to lead sufficient evidence about the relevance of Coulson's testimony?

Expect these questions to grip the media in the coming hours and days.