HM Advocate v Sheridan and Sheridan

At a preliminary hearing at the High Court in Edinburgh on 13 July 2009, the indictment against Tommy and Gail Sheridan was made public.[11] Both were charged with perjury in relation to several issues at the civil trial, and Tommy Sheridan was also charged with subornation of perjury by allegedly attempting to persuade Colin Fox to commit perjury at this trial.

Both accused took pleas in bar of trial on the basis of prejudicial pre-trial publicity, and sought to raise devolution minutes. At a preliminary hearing at the High Court in Edinburgh between 28 and 30 July 2010, the trial judge Lord Bracadale, heard legal arguments on these matters. At the close of the hearing, the preliminary pleas were repelled and the devolution minutes refused. Due to the high-profile nature of the case, Lord Bracadale took the somewhat unusual step of issuing a note, setting forth his reasons for repelling the preliminary pleas and detailing his directions given to the jury with respect to media publicity.[12]

The prosecution was led by Alex Prentice QC, his junior was David Nicolson.

Initially, Sheridan hired Donald Findlay QC to defend him, but he later dropped him in favour of Margaret Scott QC, who represented Abdelbaset al-Megrahi in an appeal against his conviction for the Lockerbie bombing.[13] Junior counsel for Sheridan was Shelagh McCall. Gail was represented by Paul McBride QC and Billy Lavelle. Her solicitor was John Paul Mowbray.

On 11 October it was announced that Sheridan had dismissed Margaret Scott, and would conduct his own defence. He retained his solicitor Aamer Anwar, who the judge appointed as amicus curiae.[14]

The full trial started on 4 October 2010 at the Glasgow High Court before Lord Bracadale, with a jury of 13 women and 2 men, mostly younger women with one ethnic minority juror.[note 2] On 15 December the judge excused one of the women jurors from serving further; the trial continued with 14 jurors.

On 25 November and again on 2 and 20 December the prosecution removed a number of charges from the indictment.

An important issue was the crucial SSP executive meeting of 9 November 2004, where Sheridan resigned as convenor. 16 witnesses who were present claimed that he did admit to visiting Cupids sex club in Manchester at this meeting.[15] Barbara Scott, the minute secretary, claimed that the minutes and her notes support this claim.[16]

Alan McCombes

An important piece of evidence was a tape which was filmed secretly a few days after this meeting, showing Sheridan making a "foul-mouthed tirade" containing statements inconsistent with his evidence in the civil trial.[17] Under cross-examination Alan McCombes denied scripting the video, as alleged by Sheridan.[15] Bob Bird, Scottish editor of the News of the World, gave evidence about how the paper acquired the tape.[18][note 3] While giving evidence, Bird said that emails relating to Sheridan may have been lost. The next day Tom Watson MP contacted the Information Commissioner, asking him to investigate whether the News of the World was in breach of the Data Protection Act.[19]

Katrine Trolle, a Danish woman who was the SSP candidate in Aberdeen North in the 2003 Scottish Parliament election, claimed that she had had an affair with Sheridan (on one occasion in the bedroom in his home in Glasgow) and visited Cupids sex club with him on 27 September 2002.[20] This was supported by a former housemate of Trolle and her ex-boyfriend who claimed that Sheridan spent the night with Trolle at her home in Dundee.[21] Gary Clark, a former professional footballer and childhood friend of Sheridan, claimed to have visited a club in Manchester with Sheridan which showed pornographic videos.[22] Anvar Khan, a News of the World journalist, claimed that she had visited Cupids sex club with Sheridan and had an affair with him.[15] This was supported by a former neighbour of Khan, who claimed to have seen Khan and Sheridan appear from the direction of a bedroom.[15] A former worker in Cupids [23] and another witness [24] claimed to have seen Sheridan in Cupids. A number of SSP activists also claimed that in the course of discussions Sheridan had made admissions about his personal life inconsistent with his evidence in the civil trial.[25][26][27]

The final chapter of the prosecution case involved a sex party which Sheridan allegedly attended at the Moat House Hotel in Glasgow. All charges related to this matter were dropped following Crown witness Matt McColl's testimony and cross examination. During his appearance in court he was warned for contempt of court due to his reluctance to name his then girlfriend and now wife, as well as agreeing he had previously told police that Sheridan had not been at the Moat House.[28][29]

On 2 December the prosecution completed its case. It dropped the charge of subornation of perjury on the grounds of lack of corroboration, and some points from the charges of perjury against both Sheridans.[30]

The defence opened its case on 3 December. Both Sheridans declined to act as witnesses themselves. Many of the witnesses called by Sheridan were members of Solidarity, his own party, including Hugh Kerr, Rosemary Byrne and Mike Gonzalez. He also called Andy Coulson, Downing Street director of communications and former News of the World editor, who denied that he had any knowledge of phone hacking at the News of the World, or that he knew Glenn Mulcaire, the private detective at the centre of controversy.[31] Tom Watson had briefed Sheridan's team about alleged phone hacking a few days earlier.[19]

Glasgow High Court, where the trial took place

Four witnesses who were present at the crucial SSP executive meeting of 9 November 2004 claimed that Sheridan did not admit to visiting a sex club at the meeting.[32]

On 17 December the defence case completed. The prosecution then dropped the last remaining charge against Gail Sheridan, who was acquitted by the judge.[33] Later that day her solicitor made a statement on her behalf outside the court thanking her legal team.

Alex Prentice gave his closing speech on 20 December. Sheridan gave his closing speech on 21–22 December, Lord Bracadale gave his summing-up, the jury then retired to consider their verdict and were later sent home for the night.[34]

On 23 December the jury found Sheridan guilty of five of six perjury charges, acquitting him of the perjury charge related to his lying about an alleged affair. He was bailed pending background reports.[35][36]

On 26 January he was sentenced to three years in prison.[37] On both days Gail Sheridan made a statement outside the court saying that she was standing by her husband.[36]

Sheridan was released on license on 30 January 2012, having served just over one year of his sentence.[38]