§ Mr. Rifkindasked the Lord Advocate whether he will make a statement on the remarks by Lord Robertson in Her Majesty's Advocate v. Waddell with regard to the conduct of his Department.
The Lord AdvocateLord Robertson in addressing the jury on 1st December 1976 in the case of Her Majesty's Advocatev. Waddell made remarks which were critical both of the decision to prosecute Ian Waddell and of the way in which the prosecution was conducted.
The substance of Lord Robertson's first line of criticism was that, in view of the publicity given to Waddell's alleged confessions and his past record, and of the publicity accorded to Meehan as a man wrongly convicted of the murder with which Waddell was charged, it was unconscionable to bring Waddell to trial at all.
Waddell had, on a number of occasions, made statements confessing in some detail to the murder of Mrs. Ross. The Crown had no reason to doubt the good faith of those to whom Waddell made these statements. The Crown's investigations following upon these statements disclosed further evidence which was sufficient in law to corroborate the confessions. Accordingly it seemed to me proper to allow a jury to determine the truth of these matters, including the question whether Waddell was unfairly prejudiced by publicity for which he himself was responsible. Not to take criminal proceedings in such circumstances might, it seemed to me, encourage the indiscriminate use of publicity either to secure the release of a convicted person or to obtain immunity from charges which might otherwise proceed against the person seeking publicity.
The second main criticism was directed against my decision not to call as prosetion witnesses certain police officers who, in the words of Lord Robertson,
176Whave, over a period of years been maligned defamed and accused by Meehan of very grave dereliction of duty, perjury, planting of evidence, and the like, without as it has turned out any shred of justification whatsoever".I do not consider that this criticism is justified. The Crown were presenting a case against Ian Waddell. It was the defence who alleged that Meehan, not Waddell, had committed the murder and it was for them to lead evidence in support of that special defence. The Crown did not maintain that Meehan's pardon in any way inhibited that defence. It was my duty to ensure that all of the evidence, favourable or adverse to the prosecution, was available for the use either of the Crown or of the defence, and this duty I performed. I made all the police officers available by including them as witnesses in the Crown list. My cross-examination of the police officers in question was not an attempt to demean them but rather to test their evidence, as it was clearly my duty to do, by asking them questions and so to explore—within the limited range open to a prosecutor in such circumstances—the allegations made of material irregularities in the investigation of the Ross murder.