Judges consider Carmichael case after election court ends

With the evidence now heard, the two judges presiding over the election court of Northern Isles MP Alistair Carmichael will now consider their verdict.

Yesterday, on the third day of proceedings, Mr Carmichael’s lawyer, Roddy Dunlop QC, called for the petition to be dismissed, while Jonathan Mitchell QC, representing the four constituents who lodged the petition, told the court that the former Scottish Secretary had told a “Homeric” catalogue of untruths over his involvement in a leaked government memo.

Mr Mitchell told the court that evidence given by Mr Carmichael couldn’t be trusted as he had repeatedly lied about his conduct until after May’s general election.

The advocate said that the MP had told lies to protect the public’s perception of him as an honest, hardworking man. But, he said, the nature of the lies told by Mr Carmichael were different to the type of behaviour usually displayed by politicians.

But in his closing submissions to the court, Mr Carmichael’s counsel said Mr Mitchell had made an “unfair attack” on the MP’s evidence.

Mr Dunlop said that Mr Carmichael had given evidence “quite plainly in a candid manner” and had accepted a number of points against his own interests.

He told the court that the four petitioners must demonstrate their case beyond reasonable doubt.

“A man is not to be convicted on an ambiguity,” he said, saying that it was clear, from the evidence, that the leak was politically motivated.

The legal challenge was lodged by four Orkney constituents – Timothy Morrison, Phemie Matheson, Fiona Grahame and Carolyn Welling – who want the general election result overturned, after Mr Carmichael admitted he was responsible for a pre-election leaked memo regarding a conversation between Nicola Sturgeon and the French ambassador to the UK.

The leak led to a Daily Telegraph article claiming that Scotland’s First Minister told the ambassador she would have preferred that David Cameron remain in Downing Street.

Mr Carmichael denied any knowledge of the leak until after the general election. He later admitted that the account of the conversation in the leaked memo was incorrect.

The legal challenge claims that Mr Carmichael’s re-election contravened the Representation of the People Act 1983, because voters were unaware of his involvement in the pre-election leak, as he had denied any knowledge of it.

However, Mr Carmichael claims there was no breach of section 106 of the Act, as set out by the petition, and that he “did not make a false statement of fact in relation to the personal character or conduct of a candidate, before or during an election, for the purpose of affecting the return of any candidate at the election.”

Lady Paton and Lord Matthews will present their judgement to the House of Commons at a later date.