ALEX Salmond’s court case – they say – could tear the SNP and the wider Yes movement apart. The verdict – others say – has been a major setback for the cause of feminism and the #MeToo movement.

So, it’s tricky to have any publicly stated position on the trial of the former First Minister, his allegations of conspiracy, the plight of female witnesses (indeed opting to use the word “plight”) the role or non-role of the FM, the behaviour of key advisers and the conduct of the civil service. Like taking a walk along Sniper Alley, if you don’t get hit by one side in the first 100 yards, you’ll soon get hit by the other. And that’s unpleasant for thousands of folk like myself, who are both feminists and independence supporters.

So, I should thank Kirsty Wark for providing some blessed relief from the What To Think About Alex Salmond quandary.

For 59 glorious minutes on Monday, the broadcaster’s biased and overwrought BBC2 documentary swept aside all the big, troubling and unresolved ramifications of the former First Minister’s court case, with the sheer weirdness and self-referencing, salacious and blatantly biased nature of her programme.

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In 25 years working for the BBC (and 10 years as a viewer) I can’t remember seeing such a poorly constructed piece of “investigative reporting”.

The main problem was the clash between the presumption of Alex Salmond’s guilt which permeated Ms Wark’s earlier interviews, the inconvenient fact of his not guilty and not proven verdicts delivered by a mostly female jury halfway through and the subsequent interviews with Salmond supporters, to try to rebalance a highly unbalanced programme. But these contributions didn’t and couldn’t provide new perspectives.

Firstly – none had seen or was at liberty to disclose the evidence Alex Salmond himself was barred from giving during his trial and that, surely, is the detail Scots now need to hear.

Secondly – that irritating minor detail in the panting, salivating hunt for a new angle – Alex Salmond was found not guilty.

And that really should have been the end of the story.

OK, Wark-Clements would have to write off wasted months of effort.

That’s tough.

OK, sexual assault cases are indeed very hard to prove and Alex Salmond did behave shabbily and inappropriately at times.

But he was found not guilty of all criminal charges against him.

That’s when programme-makers without any axe to grind would have shrugged and walked away or broadcast what they had immediately, knowing their relentless hostility to the accused would now sit very uneasily with his acquittal on all charges. Instead Wark-Clements kept going, tried to find new angles, and hoped “no smoke without fire” suspicions about Alex Salmond’s bona fides would cover their tracks.

It didn’t.

For a simple reason.

Alex Salmond was found innocent.

You might be a regular contributor to Women’s Aid and have spent half a lifetime insisting women should be believed when they allege harassment at work. You might continue to have faith in the Moorov doctrine that allows a pattern of behaviour to convict when an individual case cannot – remembering how its absence fuelled years of abuse by Jimmy Savile and the girls groomed in the North of England. You might find yourself sympathising with Salmond’s accusers still.

Except for one small thing.

He was found innocent of criminal behaviour by a jury of his peers.

If that doesn’t actually mean something, we can all go home.

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Many commentators have already pointed out that the documentary ignored days of defence evidence by female witnesses supportive to Alex Salmond. Many tweets have singled out the extraordinary, inflammatory remarks made by Kirsty Wark. But I was also struck by the weird format of the film.

Kirsty Wark’s eyeline during pieces to camera was not directly into the lens, as you’d expect from a presenter “owning” her opinions, but sideways towards an invisible (and non-existent) interviewer. This disconcerting device conveyed the impression that Kirsty was reporting back to another, unseen authority. And yet it’s fair to assume no-one was dragging opinions from the presenter and no higher authority had assigned her to this story or demanded her sensationalised coverage, except Kirsty Wark herself.

But actually, my main problem with The Trial of Alex Salmond was the idea – casually stated by an interviewee – that every viewer has already taken “sides” because Alex Salmond is a Marmite character who is either loved or hated.

That is a dangerous simplification of complex politics – and it’s just not true.

Of course, some people have strong feelings about Salmond, because it was his leadership that produced an unexpected SNP victory in 2007, a theoretically impossible Holyrood majority in 2011, the Edinburgh Agreement and the 2014 independence referendum.

But that doesn’t lead most rational folk to “love” or “hate” anyone.

It would be churlish to deny Alex Salmond’s pivotal role in the long march towards independence. But it would fly in the face of our history and the Declaration of Arbroath if that meant all Yessers had to pledge him eternal, unconditional, unquestioning loyalty.

The goal of independence is bigger than all of us – former and current First Ministers included.

So that’s why I’d guess most Scots don’t have pre-set, unalterable, “Marmite” views about Alex Salmond. Fair-minded folk don’t want to take sides, like bairns in a playground fight. They want evidence, clearly and fairly stated, that lets them make up their own minds – not about Salmond’s guilt or innocence because that’s already been decided, but about the contested circumstances that led to his trial.

That’s what we need six months on. But that’s what we didn’t get from the Wark-Clements documentary.

Nor does new evidence look likely to emerge from the Holyrood inquiry. And that’s a shame.

Evidence, justice and due process matter hugely in a democracy. They are the means for a society to rise above slur, innuendo, undue loyalty and unwarranted hostility.

But it’s looking increasingly likely that the big questions raised by Alex Salmond’s trial and acquittal may remain unanswered – at least at a formal level – while theories and allegations rage on within the sphere of social media.

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Just like a big family row, the failure to properly air and fully resolve these grievances leaves an uneasy feeling. Even writing this feels like walking on eggshells.

Of course, there’s a lot at stake.

As Nicola Sturgeon’s star rises, and with it support for independence, there’s an instinct not to probe too deeply, not to rock the boat. And legal constraints to protect the identity of witnesses mean only the boldest are willing to nail their colours to a particular mast.

But until the evidence is laid out fairly and squarely so folk can come to their own conclusions about the origins of the legal action against him, there will be strained loyalties, and deep worries within the independence movement, about revelations that have neither been totally validated nor properly put to bed.

Perhaps it was too much to expect a single TV documentary to do justice to all of this.

The trouble with The Trial of Alex Salmond was that its makers didn’t even try.