I WAS very sorry to read the statement from the women who took Alex Salmond to court.

My initial thoughts on hearing that it was the intention of a group of women to take this action were that it was a Unionist ploy to kill off Salmond politically. I was surprised to learn the women were influential in the SNP.

I am old enough to recognise the problems women have faced even during my lifetime and for many centuries before that. Where a group of people come together to further their own ends, they work against the rest of us.  It does not matter whether they are male, female, gay, straight or anything else. If they see themselves as of more importance than others, like the current UK Government, then they see no wrong in abusing those who are not like them.

I do not know where this will lead, but I am very fearful. I recall the phrase “all men are rapists”, or more properly “all men are potential rapists”. This may be true, but then one could say “all women are potential murderers”.  Most men and women are appalled by violence and abuse in whatever form, whoever uses it and against whomever.

We must listen to people who feel they have a case against somebody, but we cannot simply accept what they say without proper interrogation just because in the current climate we are expected to assume “victims” must be right.  What if I am with one of these women and she decides that my behaviour is inappropriate and makes a complaint to the police? Her anonymity allows her to do as she wishes and I could suffer the consequences. Also my wife, like Moira Salmond, would suffer. These women claim to be standing up for women, but are they too obsessed with an idea that they cannot see the hurt they do to innocent members of their own sex?

Robert Mitchell
Dunblane