Actor Brian Cox has thrown his support behind a campaign to clear the name of Captain William Kidd, wrongfully hung for being a pirate.
The Dundee-born star is backing calls for a royal pardon to be granted to Kidd, who was executed in London in 1701.
Succession star Cox, 74, who lives in New York, said: “I wholeheartedly support moves to give William Kidd a royal pardon or otherwise redeem his reputation.
“It’s never too late to right an injustice.”
The seaman, who was also born in Dundee, made a successful living chasing pirates but his fortunes changed dramatically when he was accused of being a one himself.
He stood trial and, after the evidence he needed to clear his name disappeared, he was convicted and hanged.
The actor is not the only person to call for Kidd’s pardon.
MSP William Kidd – no relation – has called the captain’s execution “state-inspired murder”.
The evidence that would have cleared Kidd of the piracy charges turned up in government files 200 years after his trial.
In 1911, UK civil servant Cornelius Neale Dalton said Kidd was a victim of “the schemings of unscrupulous politicians and lawyers”.
Ninety years later, author Richard Zacks wrote best-selling book The Pirate Hunter – The True Story Of Captain Kidd, in which he laid out the injustice.
