PERHAPS of all the petitioners, Phaemie Matheson took the biggest risk by becoming involved in this case. The final year law student is Orcadian born and bred, and left Stromness for the first time at the age of 16 to go to college in Glasgow.

She returned and worked in cafes and on the ferry while studying for a degree at the University of the Highlands and Islands. Then, “after much agonising” she started her accelerated LLB at Glasgow University last year.

Throughout this time she was sporadically politically active: “My first bit of activism was when I was about eight. I lobbied my MP to vote against fox hunting. Later I was active in the anti-war movement and the NUS.

“My family had always been left wing but I quickly discovered left wing politics for myself and on my own terms.

“I am still a lefty and always will be... When Jeremy Corbyn got on the ballot for the Labour leadership I became a supporter. I felt that the left had a chance to reclaim the party. Labour abandoned me but Corbyn’s comments about “coming home” resonated. That said, I have not joined but I am watching with interest.”

Matheson said the trigger for her involvement in this case came after she had finished exams that included constitutional law.

“During that course I lost count of how many times I had read and heard the word ‘accountability’.

“The story broke when all of this was fresh in my mind. I had spent a year learning about how government work and how it ought to work. After the election I was disappointed with the result as I think everybody on the left was.

“A Tory majority just spelt doom. Already feeling pessimistic this turned to anger when I found out about the lie… I was so fed up of politicians behaving as if they were untouchable. It showed such a lack of respect for the electorate.

“When I found out there was something that could be done about it I quickly made up my mind to take part.”

And she dismisses critics who refer to the four as an SNP rabble.

“This goes beyond the party political and strikes at a culture within our politics. The colour of the rosette a person wears has no bearing on how I feel about holding them to account.”

“As voters we expect a certain standard of conduct. It is not good enough to say ‘these things happen’ or ‘all politicians lie’.”

She added that they all appreciated the enormity of the task: “It is not easy to change a constitution, even harder to change a culture.”

However, she added the support had been amazing: “We could not have done this without the support of the public. It has shown that these thing do matter. People are not apathetic.

“I would however like to point out that crowd funding - however successful we have been - is not an alternative to a properly funded system of legal aid... We need some means available to us through the courts to hold the state to account, but without funding these are only available to those who can pay.

“Win or lose I helped do something remarkable. An elected representative had to account for their actions in open court. In doing so darker aspects political culture were exposed.

“Shedding light on these kind of practices surely can be a catalyst for change.”