The personal view of a lawyer
At present I am the person chairing the Concern for Justice fund committee and I was also a witness for the prosecution at the 1996 trial of Professor Donald Macleod in Edinburgh. As we all know, Professor Macleod has managed to divert attention away from the 1996 Court Case and to give the impression that all the dissension within the Free Church is to do with differences between so-called traditionalists and modernisers. Very few people are naive enough to believe that.
Unresolved injustice
People in general are perfectly aware that most of the problems stem from the unresolved injustice suffered by other ministers and members of the Church as a result of the defence put forward by Professor Macleod at his trial. His claim was, that a number of named ministers and church members had conspired together to bring about his downfall. In order to do that, he further claimed that they had procured five young women to make false allegations about him. However, when the Church did not take them seriously they somehow managed to organise the bringing of criminal charges against him by Lothian & Borders Police, followed by prosecution in the Sheriff Court via the Procurator Fiscal and Crown Office. These young women were then, according to the Professor, apparently prepared to go into the witness box, with representatives of the media present, in order to tell lies about being sexually assaulted, merely to please these so-called conspirators and in so doing would subject themselves to humiliating cross-examination and horrendous publicity in the press, on radio and T.V. By doing this they would also be risking their own personal reputations for honesty, and possibly jeopardising their careers and livelihoods. Not only that, but they would be showing total indifference to the effect all of this might have on their own families. Amazingly too, these young women were not all known to one another nor did they know all of the men for whom they were supposed to be doing this. Crazy, eh? These were all intelligent, sensible and professional young women, which makes it sound all the more crazy.
Self-destruct mode
The presiding Sheriff, for reasons best known to himself, decided to acquit Professor Macleod, apparently accepting his story without even seeing the men accused of conspiracy and without giving them the opportunity to answer the Professor's accusations, which was their right. Their names were, however, allowed to be published and so they were publicly branded and condemned as conspirators and the young women were publicly condemned along with them as liars and co-conspirators. These men and the young women are still seeking justice. Is it any surprise? So far they have had no support from the Church. We have all heard and read about the stress caused by it to the Professor's family but no interest has been shown in the stress and damage caused to the families of these men and of the young women. They were all just expected to forget it and to take part in some kind of 'peace and reconciliation process'. It is no wonder the Church is in turmoil, and that some members are taking a stand for justice and truth. There will be no end to it until the matter is properly investigated by the Church in an open and honest manner and that means making all the evidence, written and oral, available to the Church, regardless of what the consequences may be. The Free Church would appear to be in self-destruct mode and all seemingly just to keep one man happy, a man whose ambition, apparently, is to be in complete control.
Turning a blind eye
As everyone knows, there has never been a genuine investigation on behalf of the Church, as no proper and relevant evidence has ever been presented to enable an informed decision to be made. There is nothing Christian about turning a blind eye to injustice, and these men accused of conspiracy and the young women accused of lying for them have suffered a grave and serious public injustice.
The Moderator-elect
The Free Church's Moderator-elect was in Australia and knew about Professor Macleod's relationship with a young woman referred to in the trial. Ministers there were trying to help him, and were certainly not trying to bring about his downfall as Professor Macleod claimed in Court. The Australian ministers were communicating with the ministers in Edinburgh at that time in an effort to resolve the matter without it becoming public. That was in the 1980s, and yet when the young women put their complaints forward they were brushed aside as of no significance, with disastrous results for the Church. Some of those who were not prepared to take the complaints seriously must have known about the Australian matter and must have realised they were ignoring the women's complaints at their peril.
Seeking redress
Donald Macleod will probably never admit to anything and will no doubt continue to claim that everybody else is lying and plotting against him out of malice and spite. It's quite incredible that the people who sit in the pews of the Church are expected to believe that he alone is speaking truthfully and that everyone else is lying and trying to bring about his downfall. My niece was one of the young women concerned. My husband and I knew about her complaint in 1986, before her own parents and well before the Rev Angus Smith with whom she was supposed to have been involved in the alleged conspiracy. We as a family kept quiet about it for almost ten years in order to protect his family from being hurt. It is a tragic mess really, not least for Professor Macleod and his family, but the men accused of conspiracy and the women accused of lying on their behalf are entitled to be heard and sooner or later they will be heard whether the Church is prepared to listen to them or not. There are ministers and members of the Free Church who were accused in a Court of Law by a fellow minister of conspiring to bring about his downfall, and of using five decent young women, very young women, to aid and abet them in achieving that end, decent men who were condemned by that court without ever being seen or allowed to answer the accusation. There is here a serious matter of infringement of their human rights, and hopefully the time has now arrived for the Church at least, to officially recognise that. When the Human Rights Act becomes part of our law there will be no need for anyone to go to the European Court of Justice. They will be able to seek redress here in Scotland.
Agnes Mackenzie, Edinburgh, (former lecturer in Law).
Any comments or questions please E-Mail me or Rev William Macleod the editor.
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