A business expert detained during a doomed Rangers fraud probe has lost his £8.7 million malicious prosecution claim against police and prosecutors.
David Grier, 60, wanted compensation from the law enforcement agencies because he believed his arrest ruined his reputation.
The Court of Session heard how Grier was taken into custody during an investigation into alleged criminal wrongdoing at the club.
Detectives and prosecutors believed the law had been broken during the time the club was sold to businessman Craig Whyte.
Prosecutors claimed Grier participated in a fraud with Whyte. They claimed that Whyte broke the law by using cash from a firm called Ticketus to acquire the finance to buy Rangers.
Grier was detained and prosecuted alongside other men who were said to be involved in the alleged wrongdoing. However, everybody arrested during the probe was acquitted of any wrongdoing.
This prompted Grier to launch a £7m compensation action against the police and Crown Office. He claimed his arrest had affected his ability to maintain his high flying job in financial services.
His lawyers told judge Lord Tyre at the Court of Session that both law enforcement agencies had acted maliciously against him and that he should be entitled to compensation.
The court heard that the Crown Office was headed at the time by Frank Mulholland QC - who now sits as high court judge Lord Mulholland.
Lord Tyre also heard claims the police officer leading the investigation - Detective Chief Inspector Jim Robertson - had acted inappropriately during the investigation.
The court heard claims that he sang lyrics from what appeared to be a Rangers song to Philip Duffy, a colleague of Grier’s at financial services firm Duff & Phelps.
The court also heard DCI Robertson mishandled confidential documents which were protected by legal privilege during the investigation.
In a written judgment issued at the court on Tuesday, Lord Tyre ruled that Grier’s lawyers hadn’t shown that prosecution service had acted maliciously.
But Lord Tyre also criticised senior officers involved in the investigation. He said some of DCI Robertson’s evidence was “evasive” and “unreliable” and that some of his actions during the probe were “reprehensible”.
Lord Tyre concluded that some of the evidence given by DCI Robertson’s colleague - Detective Chief Inspector Jacqueline O’Neill, 47, - was “untruthful.”
In the judgment, Lord Tyre wrote about DCI Robertson’s behaviour during interviews with witnesses and of a search of offices belonging to Grier’s employers Duff & Phelps.
The judgement tells of evidence which was found during the search.
Lord Tyre wrote: “As regards behaviour during interviews, there was evidence..of unacceptable intimidatory and threatening behaviour by Mr Robertson during interviews.
“In other respects I found Mr Robertson’s evidence unsatisfactory. At the outset he attempted to decline to provide any oral evidence on the basis that his evidence was in his written statements, and he had to be instructed to answer questions.
“At some times he professed lack of memory because of the passage of time; at others he demonstrated a detailed recollection of events when it was in his interest to do so. I have not accepted his evidence on contentious matters without support from other sources.
“My impression was that Ms O’Neill was generally doing her best to assist the court. This was not the case, however, when she was asked questions about wrongdoing by Mr Robertson.
“I reject as untruthful her evidence that she did not discuss the finding of the cash flow schedule in the black folder during the search of Duff & Phelps’ office with Mr Robertson, and that she only noticed it in the folder because it was ‘obvious’.
“On other matters, however, I find no reason not to accept her evidence.”
The cases brought by Grier come in the light of admissions made by the Crown in another case brought by businessmen David Whitehouse and Paul Clark.
Prosecutors admitted Whitehouse and Clark were wrongfully arrested and prosecuted - the two men sought a total of £20.8m from the Crown Office and Police Scotland. But they later settled their action with each of them receiving £10.3m each - their legal bills, thought to be worth £3m each, were also paid for.
Earlier this year, former Rangers executive Charles Green was also told he was able to receive damages after the Crown admitted it had conducted a “malicious” prosecution against him. He received a £6.3 million settlement.
Last year, Grier said he first became aware that he was a suspect in the fraud probe on November 13 2014. Lawyers had told him in a meeting that he was suspected of suspected wrongdoing and that he had a meeting with Paul Clark - the then administrator of Rangers - about what they had been told.
He said that police had came to his home in the south of England the following morning at 6am and he detained and taken to Glasgow to be interviewed about the allegations.
Grier told that when he was involved in the sale of Rangers to Whyte, he never suspected any wrongdoing in the deal.
He said he developed concerns about Mr Whyte’s deal following the conclusion of the sale. Grier said his concerns developed when he was involved in a ‘small tax case’ concerning Rangers and HMRC.
Grier said he made his concerns known to HMRC on several occasions.
He said he needed compensation from the police and prosecutors as the arrest made it difficult for him to do his job.
Grier said: “Unfortunately being arrested for fraud when you work in financial services is catastrophic - it’s a career ending moment.”
Philp Duffy told the court of how he was interviewed by DCI Robertson during the probe.
Mr Duffy, who works as a special advisor for financial firm Duff & Phelps, said that DCI Robertson’s behaviour during one of the interviews was “odd” and “bizarre”.
He said: “It sounded like a football song. I think the words ‘the Big House’ was mentioned. I didn’t realise what it was at the time. It just sounded like a football chant.
“I remember turning around to my lawyer and looking at my lawyer and the lawyer looking at us and both had quizzical looks on our faces.
“I vaguely remember something about ‘the Big House’ and I didn’t know what that meant until I spoke to somebody and they said Rangers fans refer to Ibrox as ‘the Big House’.
“It was just bizarre.”
DCI Robertson denied chanting any football song lyrics during the interview. He said he may have ‘referenced’ a song called the Billy Boys, which he said was associated with Rangers.
Lawyers for Grier told Lord Tyre that the evidence showed that the police and prosecutors had acted maliciously.
Lawyers for the police and Crown Office argued that the prosecution was not malicious and that their clients were entitled to take action against Grier.
Lord Tyre found that the police had no objective reasonable and probable cause for either the detention and charging of the pursuer or his subsequent prosecution.
But he found that both the police and prosecution service didn’t maliciously prosecute Grier and that his legal action should fail.
He wrote: “I have already observed that I formed an unfavourable impression of Mr Robertson as a witness.
“Mr Robertson’s reprehensible actings, including in particular his wilful disregard for legal professional privilege and his improper behaviour during interviews of witnesses, were largely driven by his groundless suspicion that the Duff & Phelps witnesses and their lawyers Mr Clibbon and Mr Gregory were deliberately obstructing the investigation.
“It was emphasised by the court in Whitehouse v Lord Advocate that malice was not to be inferred from, among other things, incompetence, poor judgment, lack of professionalism or recklessness.
“Much of the police investigation suffered from these faults but that is not enough to meet the test. No ‘llegitimate or oblique motive’ or deliberate misuse of the process of the court has been demonstrated.
“However I am satisfied (i) that all of the individuals concerned in the prosecution of the pursuer were subjectively of the view that there was reasonable and probable cause to indict the pursuer for the offences with which he was charged and, separately, (ii) that their actings were not motivated by any purpose other than the pursuit of the interests of justice."
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