The Guardian, UK: The Metropolitan police has closed its investigation into historical allegations against Alex Salmond after its review this year.
The force said it first opened an investigation into alleged misconduct by the former first minister of Scotland in January 2019 and had pursued one case after reassessing the allegations in March this year.
Salmond, former Scottish National party MP, has repeatedly denied committing any offences. He was acquitted, by majority verdicts, of 14 sexual offence charges, including one of attempted rape, in March 2020 after a two-week trial at the high court in Edinburgh.
He had been first charged with alleged sexual and criminal offences in January 2019, two weeks after he won a legal action against the Scottish government over its mishandling of an internal investigation into sexual misconduct complaints from two civil servants.
The court of session, Scotland’s civil court, quashed the findings of that internal review, but Police Scotland had already launched its investigation into Salmond when the Scottish government inquiry originally upheld the complaints, in August 2018.
Leslie Evans, the government’s permanent secretary, told a Scottish parliament committee on Tuesday that three complaints were passed to the police. It is believed Police Scotland received reports of alleged historic incidents in London, where Salmond had lived as an MP from the late 1980s onwards, and passed those on to New Scotland Yard.
The Met said: “In January 2019 the Metropolitan police service (MPS) was passed information linked to an ongoing investigation in Scotland.
“Specialist officers launched a review of the information to ascertain if any criminal offences had been committed within the Metropolitan police district. In consultation with the Crown Prosecution Service no further action was taken in relation to the information provided.
“In March 2020, MPS carried out a further review of the information and one allegation of crime was recorded. The complainant was contacted by officers. Following this contact, the investigation was not proceeded with and no further action was taken.”
The Times reported on Wednesday that the complainant had asked for no further action to be taken because she feared the consequences; complainers in Salmond’s trial had been subjected to attacks and threats on social media.
She was quoted saying: “Following careful and difficult deliberation, and after having sought advice from experts, I wrote to the police to say I did not feel safe to proceed with a possible trial at that time.
“The scale of the backlash, intimidation, misinformation and threats that followed the trial in Scotland was highly distressing, and created an environment where I did not feel safe to seek a trial.”
Salmond declined to comment.
