A BUSINESS expert who was detained during a doomed Rangers fraud probe is planning to take his multi-million-pound compensation claim to Britain’s highest court.
David Grier, 60, told on Wednesday of how he is instructing his lawyers to go to the UK Supreme Court to continue his long-running legal battle against Scottish prosecutors.
He is seeking compensation from the Lord Advocate Dorothy Bain KC because he believes the prosecution against him was malicious and has damaged his ability to make a living.
On Wednesday, his advocate Roddy Dunlop KC failed to persuade appeal judges at Edinburgh’s Court of Session to grant him permission to proceed to the Supreme Court.
However, Mr Grier’s lawyers plan to approach the UK Supreme Court directly in the next few months.
Mr Grier, who comes from Barrhead, Renfrewshire, said: “I’m unfortunately not surprised that the Inner House have refused to allow us to appeal to the Supreme Court.
READ MORE: Key Rangers figure fails in £14m fight against prosecutors over failed fraud case
“However, we do intend to take the matter directly to the Supreme Court.”
The Court of Session has previously heard how Mr Grier was taken into custody during an investigation into alleged criminal wrongdoing at the club.
Detectives and prosecutors believed that the law had been broken during the time the club was sold to businessman Craig Whyte.
Prosecutors claimed that Mr Grier participated in a fraud with Mr Whyte. They claimed that Mr Whyte broke the law by using cash from a firm called Ticketus to acquire the finance to buy Rangers.
Mr Grier was 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 Mr Grier to launch a £7 million compensation action against the police and Crown Office, claiming his arrest had affected his ability to maintain his job in financial services.
Prosecutors previously admitted David Whitehouse and Paul Clark were wrongfully arrested and prosecuted - and the two men settled their action with both the Crown Office and Police Scotland with each of them receiving £10.3 million each - their legal bills, thought to be worth £3 million each, were also paid for.
READ MORE: Humza Yousaf hands plum SNP job to wife of his independence minister
Mr Grier's lawyers told judge Lord Tyre at the Court of Session that both law enforcement agencies had acted maliciously against him, entitling him to compensation.
Lord Tyre also heard claims that the police officer leading the investigation - Detective Chief Inspector Jim Robertson - had acted inappropriately during the investigation.
Nevertheless, Lord Tyre ruled that Mr Grier’s lawyers hadn’t shown that the prosecution service had acted maliciously.
However, he said some of DCI Robertson’s evidence was “evasive” and “unreliable” and that some of his actions during the probe were “reprehensible”.
This prompted lawyers for Mr Grier to appeal to the Inner House of the Court of Session.
On Wednesday, Mr Grier’s lawyer Roddy Dunlop KC told civil appeal judges that the legal tests needed for the Court of Session to allow cases to go to the Supreme Court had been passed.
He told Lord Carloway Lord Pentland and Lord Woolman: “There is a genuine need for someone who has been caught up in such a scandal to have effective public remedy.
“There are good grounds available in this case to allow it to proceed.”
The Lord Advocate’s lawyer Gerry Moynihan KC said that he disagreed that the legal tests needed had been passed.
He added: “The question is whether there was an ulterior motive in prosecuting Mr Grier. The answer is that there is none. The prosecution was conducted in the reasonable belief that there was a reasonable belief that there was evidence available.
“Your lordships should not grant permission to proceed.”
Lord Carloway and his colleagues concluded that the tests needed for the case to proceed to the UK Supreme Court had not been passed.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here