Paul Malpas

This week has been a very important week in the Hollie Greig story after last weekends programme on Manchester Radio Online with Tony Legend.  On Tuesday with only nine days to go before the General Election, Alex Salmond made an unannounced visit to Aberdeen to open a workshop for blind people, think of the kudos that would give him so near to the election, yet he chose to do it without informing the media.  On the same day Nick Clegg cancelled his pre-arranged visit to the Granite City-no reasons given.  The mainstream parties seem to be running scared of being drawn into our debate.

On Wednesday Robert Green, the broadcaster and journalist, who has brought this campaign into mainstream thinking has been ordered to appear at Stonehaven Sheriff Court today, unaccompanied and the proceedings are to be dealt with in camera, in other words no members of the public are allowed to be present.  This is after  his Aberdeen lawyers ditched him last weekend quoting “a conflict of interest”.  They represented Anne Greig ten years ago.  This whole scenario has to be seen to be believed, against a man who was arrested for peacefully handing out leaflets.  His Scottish aides are now, as I type, looking for a non-crooked able Scottish lawyer to handle the proceedings.  Is there a chance?

In the meantime the computer system of The Palestine Telegraph, the only newspaper that has consistently taken up Hollies story, have had their computer system hacked and Lorraine Loudon who is a leading campaigner for Hollie has had her Facebook page shut down with its 26,000 contributors.  Also last night there was another hustings debate in South Aberdeen organized by BBC Radio Scotland who told the Scotland Against Crooked Lawyers (SACL) representatives that their policy precluded any other than the four main parties from attending.  However leaflets were handed out before the doors were shut and the debate continued until it collapsed 45 minutes later.

Clydeside Television are covering the comings and goings with glee for if nothing else it is all grist to the independent television producers mill.  There main aim besides trying to get justice for Hollie is to make and distribute a programme about this affair.  So their main immediate thrust is to get the campaign proper and sustained legal representation.  They and Greg Watkins from  Stolen-Kids-Hollie.blog.com, the official Hollie blog,  are telling all supporters to use this next week as a period of reflection and entrenchment while the political process comes to an end and are desperately asking anyone in Scotland, if they can, to help the SACL party in Aberdeen during these next few days.

As Lorraine says you could not make up all this activity if you tried and the Establishments sphincter must be well and truly twitching and the media professionals must be having nightmares thinking of all this unpublished and unbelievable copy going to waste.  This whole campaign says something for our lily-livered and squeamish media, but it does show everyone where the power at this moment lies.

So Hollie entrench away and ensure your next few steps are guided by proper, just and honest counsel.  There must be someone who fits the bill out there, who would be willing and able to fight wisely for Human Rights in this paragon of virtue, Great Britain.