During the Scottish referendum campaign there was many accusations from Beter Together of thuggish behavior on the YES side so it it interesting that a Merseyside MP charged with attacking a woman at a polling station on the day of the Scottish independence referendum has walked free from court - after an apparent blunder by prosecutors.
Former St Helen's council leader Marie Rimmer had been accused of kicking Patricia McLeish outside a community centre in Glasgow’s Shettleston last September 18.
The 67 year-old - MP for St Helens South and Whiston - was in Scotland at the time supporting the Better Together campaign.
Ms Rimmer today stood trial at the city’s sheriff court accused of assault.
But, the case collapsed midway through Ms McLeish giving evidence after trial judge Sheriff Brian Adair noticed the word Glasgow had not been listed on the charge.
This lead him to question whether there was the proper jurisdiction for the case to continue.
Prosecutor Adele McDonald asked for the trial to carry on, but Rimmer’s lawyer Liam Ewing claimed the charge was not permissible due to the error.
Sheriff Adair eventually decided to throw out the case against the MP, who first faced the allegation last October.
He told Ms Rimmer the accusation was being dismissed due to lack of location in the charge.
Ms Rimmer made no comment as she left court after the bungled hearing.
Ms McLeish had earlier given evidence branding Ms Rimmer delusional for the alleged attack outside the polling station in the city’s east end.
The 51 year-old local government worker had been handing out leaflets for the Yes campaign at the time.
The witness claimed the MP had confronted her and initially demanded to know what Ms McLeish worked as.
Ms McLeish said she ignored Ms Rimmer, but she came back up to her again quite angry.
Ms McLeish then alleged:
“She was facing me, came up into my face and she kicked me. She had invaded my personal space - I had never seen that before at a polling station.“She kicked me on the left shin and smirked after she done this. It was determined. I remember saying this was a disgrace. I could no believe an older woman would do that to another woman.”
The witness insisted she thought Ms Rimmer had mental health problems and initially had not wanted to report the matter to police.
But, officers later took a statement that lead to Ms Rimmer being arrested.
It is believed Ms Rimmer spent up to eight hours in a police cell.
She was elected as an MP in May’s General Election having previously been leader of St Helens Council.
It is odd that Prosecutors could make such a fundamental error and conspiracy theorist are going to have fun with this.
It would have been very embarrassing for the NO side and Labour if Ma Rimmer had been found Guilty but it would be wrong to assume that she would have been.
Still it seems that although the YES side received much harmful publicity over intimidation and there may be incidents of a few isolated cases Better Together and the NO side (which included Labour) can hardly claim the moral side,
2 comments:
Thank you most sincerely for publishing this affront to the people who stood up to the Establishment, that it then moved in to protect itself is no surprise. The more publicity this gets the better. Believe me the NO side are not as pure as the driven snow, it was one of their's who threatened the life of Alex Salmond's father, it was part of their's who threatened two young girls in Glasgow, and which resulted in the two young girls being taken into custody and believe it or not charged until public outrage stopped it. The BT gang were offensive in extreme online, but then they were under the wing of the said Establishment.
you have to wonder if it had been a yes campaigner kicking a better together supporter would a similar 'mistake' been made in the paperwork?
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