Sheriff Lindsay Wood to retire amid Rangers controversy

David Grier, 61, a consultant with the financial firm Duff & Phelps, had lodged a formal complaint against Sheriff Lindsay Wood with the Judicial Office for Scotland last May.

Sheriff Wood granted 22 warrants to police during the investigation. He was also known to regularly attend Rangers matches as well as social events and had a framed photo of Ibrox in his chambers.

The police investigation was subsequently found to be unlawful and “executed without proper safeguards”.

Among the warrants was one granted in 2015, which allowed officers to raid the London offices of Holman Fenwick Willan, the law firm representing Duff & Phelps.

Craig Turnbull, sheriff principal of Glasgow and Strathkelvin, who investigated Sheriff Wood, has now concluded that Sheriff Wood submitted a misleading report attempting to justify his decision, which contained information he was ignorant of when he granted the warrant.

Sheriff Wood’s account relied on information taken from a “police warrant request sheet” compiled by Detective Chief Inspector Jim Robertson, the senior investigating officer, who is reputed to have sung a Rangers song prior to conducting interviews.

A judge has since held that DCI Robertson had provided evidence that was “patently untrue” and acted in an “intimidatory and threatening” way and conducted himself in a “reprehensible” manner.

Mr Grier along with David Whitehouse and Paul Clark, was appointed to manage the club’s affairs when it fell into administration in 2012. In 2014 all three were arrested in a scandal that also saw four other men being charged and cleared. It has already cost the taxpayer more than £40 million in payments to those who were maliciously prosecuted.

Mr Grier complained that Sheriff Wood had used a police warrant request sheet to prepare an explanatory report submitted to the Lord Justice General, Lord Carloway, “without telling the court that was what he had done”.

In his findings, Sheriff Principal Turnbull did not dispute this.

“The sheriff relied upon the police information sheet in the preparation of the supplementary report,” he wrote.

“He accepts that the report looked as if it was his own note of what he was told by the police officer [Robertson] in the application for the warrant in question. The sheriff accepts that there was material in the report which he did not know when he granted the warrant.”

He added: “An [appeal] court has a legitimate expectation that reports provided to it by judges of the court below are complete, accurate and not misleading.

“In the present case the supplementary report was misleading.”

He noted that Sheriff Wood had accepted responsibility and apologised, adding: “The sheriff has given notification of his intention to retire in May 2023.”

He found that Sheriff Wood had not discharged his responsibilities properly.

“That failure requires to be marked in some way,” he said. “My recommendation is that formal advice be given.”

But his recommendation has been overturned by Lord Carloway – who said no action would be required.

A response from the Judicial Office for Scotland states: “Almost seven years have elapsed since the conduct complained of occurred. The sheriff has recognised his error and expressed remorse.

“In these and other circumstances in relation to Sheriff Wood’s tenure, the lord president has decided that it would neither be appropriate nor desirable to issue formal advice.”

Mr Grier said he was astonished by the reaction of Lord Carloway.

“It now appears that passage of time is to be taken as an acceptable defence for wrongdoing,” he said.

“When this matter was first raised in 2019 Sheriff Wood had the opportunity to admit to colluding with DCI Robertson and misleading the appeal court.

“Since then I have incurred considerable cost in exposing this conduct.”