ALMOST four years after he was arrested and charged with committing perjury, disgraced former News of the World editor Andy Coulson walked free from the High Court in Edinburgh yesterday.

Coulson’s trial for perjury allegedly committed during the 2010 perjury trial of socialist politician Tommy Sheridan collapsed ignominiously after trial judge Lord Burns accepted the defence argument that the prosecution should not proceed on the point of law that alleged perjured evidence must be “relevant”.

After five days of oral evidence for the prosecution and five days of legal arguments, and after the Crown decided not to contest the judge’s ruling, jury members were told by Lord Burns that the Crown had not satisfied him that the evidence Coulson gave about hacking in the Sheridan trial in 2010 was relevant in legal terms.

Under Scots law, it is not enough to prove perjury by simply proving that a person lied under oath — the alleged false evidence must also be competent and relevant to proving the original charges.

Lord Burns told the jury that relevancy was for him to decide, and that he had “decided that the Crown had not led sufficient evidence to satisfy me that the allegedly false evidence was relevant to the proof of the charge in Mr Sheridan’s trial or to Mr Coulson’s credibility at that trial.”

The prime minister’s former director of communications said: “This prosecution was always wrong. I didn’t lie, and the prosecution in my view was a gross waste of public money.

“I’m just delighted that after four pretty testing years, my family and myself have finally had a good day.”



Last night, Sheridan (above) called the collapse of the case “a shambles” and demanded a public inquiry.

Sheridan said: “I want to know who has been sacked within the Crown Office, because they have spent over £1 million of public money, thousands of police hours, on a case where apparently they didn’t know what they were doing.”

Sheridan was convicted of perjury in 2010 after he won a civil case for defamation against the News of the World in 2006. The paper alleged Sheridan, a married man, had visited a so-called swinger’s club in Manchester, and the jury at the perjury trial found that Sheridan had lied over these accusations under oath.

Sheridan, who defended himself in 2010, questioned Coulson closely about phone hacking, and on oath, Coulson denied any knowledge of hacking before the arrest of reporter Clive Goodman in 2006.

That evidence led to the latest trial in which Coulson was accused of lying about knowing about phone hacking at the News of the World.

Three former employees of the newspaper alleged in court that Coulson had known about phone hacking, and the jury were not told that Coulson had served seven months in jail after being convicted of his involvement in the hacking of phones of celebrities and members of the public.

After the prosecution evidence, defence counsel Murdo MacLeod QC argued that Coulson’s evidence in 2010 was not relevant to the conviction of Sheridan — indeed the Crown had argued that Coulson’s evidence was irrelevant at the time.

MacLeod told the Court: “With the greatest respect to the advocate depute [the crown prosecutor] — and I mean no criticism of him — he is trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear,”

Last night the Crown Office issued the following statement: “Andrew Coulson was a defence witness at the trial of Tommy Sheridan. He gave his evidence without objection as to relevancy.

“The Crown indicted Coulson on the basis that he lied during parts of his evidence, in particular that he had no knowledge of phone hacking.

“The trial judge in the Coulson trial, at the conclusion of the prosecution evidence, ruled that this evidence was irrelevant and therefore could not found the basis for a prosecution for perjury.

“This brings proceedings to an end.”

Asked by The National why the case had proceeded when it was known that there might be doubts about the competency and relevancy of Coulson’s evidence in 2010, a Crown Office spokesperson said: “Perjury is an extremely serious offence which will always be thoroughly investigated by the Crown. An allegation of perjury was made in this case and it was in the public interest that this was fully investigated and the evidence brought before the court.

“The public require to have confidence in the judicial system and we will continue to treat perjury as the serious offence it is and to bring prosecutions when there is sufficient, credible and reliable evidence of a crime.”

The end of the trial means that all four journalists — Bob Bird, Douglas Wight and Gill Smith were the others — have now had the cases against them dropped.


Lawyer’s blog forecast failure of trial three years ago

THE possibility of the prosecution of Andy Coulson for alleged perjury ending in faluire was raised as long ago as May, 2012, by a prominent Scottish lawyer and blogger.

The late Paul McConville’s legal career ended when he was struck off for professional misconduct,

He died aged 47 in November, 2013, but his blog predicted the problems ahead for the Crown Office.

After Andy Coulson was arrested on suspicion of perjury in 2011, McConville inspected the evidence at Tommy Sheridan’s 2010 perjury trial given by Coulson, News of the World Scottish editor Bob Bird and news editor Douglas Wight. He referred to them as the NotW 3.

McConville wrote: “I have grave doubts as to whether any of the NotW 3 ... can competently face a perjury trial regarding the evidence given at the Sheridan Trial.”

He added: “The law, as it has been seen in Scotland for over 200 years, is quite clear.

“If false witness is borne, irrelevant to the case, then this is not perjury ... None of the three witnesses were giving evidence with direct connection to the charges on which Mr Sheridan was convicted.