The unedifying spectacle of Tommy Sheridan and his family being hounded continues...
Apparently, more money and police time has been dedicated to the investigation of his alleged perjury than was spent on the "Cash For Honours" scandal...
..the moral of this story seems to be; don't beat the rich in court...
..we reprint part of a Solidarity statement below...
Solidarity Statement:
"Solidarity maintains that the ongoing perjury investigation into Tommy Sheridan and others who've been questioned and subsequently charged this week, is part of a political witch-hunt being carried out at the behest of Rupert Murdoch's News International Corporation and a Scottish legal establishment left reeling by Sheridan's victory in his High Court defamation case in the summer of 2006.
The only crime that Tommy Sheridan is guilty of is the crime of speaking truth to power. His is a political reputation built upon an unwavering commitment to speaking out on behalf of the most vulnerable and oppressed in society. He has and continues to speak out against the scourges of low pay, poverty, racism, war and inequality in all its forms - in short, against everything Rupert Murdoch and his vast media empire represents.
The resources allocated to this investigation thus far, both in terms of public money and police manpower, constitutes grounds for a public inquiry. Reports have suggested that over £1million pounds will have been spent by the time this investigation reaches its end. This is an amount that far exceeds the £750,000 spent on the recent 'cash for peerages' investigation into corruption at the heart of the British Government. As for manpower, recent news reports have stated that over twenty officers have been working on this investigation full time for over a year. Given that Lothian and Borders Police currently holds the onerous distinction of the worst record of any police force in the country when it comes to successfully investigating cases involving rape, the public has a right to know how they can afford such an allocation of manpower into matters arising from a civil defamation case.
Questions need to be asked. For example: has the police investigation into the listening device involved Sweeney-style arrests with unmarked police cars skidding into car parks at high speed, as Tommy Sheridan was subjected to? Has it involved home invasions involving nine police officers holding a woman and her infant child hostage while they ransacked her home, as Tommy Sheridan's wife and child were forced to endure?
Has anyone been questioned in relation to this matter? More specifically, has the editor of the News of The World, Bob Bird, been questioned? After all, this is the editor of the newspaper that was successfully sued for defamation by Tommy Sheridan in 2006. Moreover, last year a high ranking journalist working for this particular newspaper was sent to prison for illegally bugging the private phone conversations of various members of the so-called Royal Family."
