Alex Salmond has questioned why the Scottish Government decided to apply anti-harassment policies drawn up in the wake of the MeToo movement to previous ministers.
In evidence to the Holyrood committee investigating the Scottish government handling of the harassment complaints, Salmond suggested the policy had been “spatchocked” in six weeks.
“What was the extraordinary rush to get the policy for former Ministers through in October and November 2017?” asked Salmond in his evidence session to MSPs on Friday.
Salmond successfully challenged the lawfulness of the Government policy on harassment claims made against him.
He said: “The description most commonly made in the press about the government’s policy and what happened is ‘botched’. The policy was unlawful, unfair, untainted by a partisan bias, botched doesn’t cover it.”
Independent MSP Andy Wightman asked Salmond if he had challenged the policy because “you felt it was not competent ever to investigate complaints of historical sexual harassment as a matter of principle, or because you felt the allegations against you shouldn’t be investigated?”
The former SNP leader replied: “If nothing else had been wrong with policy, and as we both know there were many things wrong with policy, it may well have fallen on the question of retrospectivity”.
The former First Minister faced a criminal court case last year when he was cleared of 13 charges of sexual harassment.
A police inquiry was initiated after two Scottish government civil servants made complaints about Salmond’s behaviour as First Minister under a new harassment policy drawn up after he left office.
Salmond said he was “not consulted” about making the new policy retrospective and it struck him “as a quite extraordinary thing to be happening”.
Salmond told MSPs on the committee: “There were many things wrong with the policy, because it was developed at pace, as a Civil Service says, spatchcocked as I would say, over a period of six weeks in a panic for reasons this committee will hopefully determine.”
He added: “However you look at it, from nobody’s point of view was that satisfactory. It was an abject total, complete disaster”
