I have penned typed a few thoughts on the legality of Mr Whyte’s taping of his lengthy chat in the club with Mr Grier.
Andy Muirhead at Scotzine.com has been kind enough to post it.
The short version?
Was it illegal for Mr Whyte to record his chat? No.
Could Mr Grier act to stop Mr Whyte selling the recording? Probably.
Is the recording admissible in court proceedings? If the court considers it is relevant and does not sufficiently offend against public policy considerations, then yes.
As you might expect, the piece is rather longer, and can be found at the link here.
Enjoy!
Posted by Paul McConville
Random Thoughts Re Scots Law by Paul McConville 
A wise man would always assume his conversations are being recorded and never say anything he would not like to admit to later.
@ josephmcgrath
An even wiser man takes the opportunity to plant certain false trails as well if he believes he is being spied-upon.
However, from what I have heard so far, the only person with any wisdom and foresight here was wee Craigie.
What is very strange was the way that Grier when speaking to Ramsey Smith of Media House sounded like a small boy almost seeking approval for what he was suggesting. It has to be remembered that Mr Grier is a very senior and powerful figure in the world of finance and not the rather weak child-like character that he sounded IMHO on the tape.
Not that I suggest that Media House did anything illegal or acted unprofessionally as I am sure that they were only following instructions from their client.
However, harping back to Mr Grier’s demeanour during the telephone conversation, I wonder if Media House have more than one client that might be involved in the Rangers ‘situation’.
Again I do not attribute anything wrong if that is the case as I assume that as a responsible and professional company they would have erected the necessary ‘chinese walls’ to keep the differing interests of clients from either becoming conflicted or even giving the appearance of being conflicted. To make sure I’m certain that different partners or senior employees would have handled the different clients.
Of course we don’t actually know if there are different clients and Media House might be constrained by client confidentiality not to reveal the identity of clients but MSM will have a fair idea who the clients are because they will have had press releases and no doubt briefings including OTR ones. Going by the usual inactivity of MSM it is unlikely we will hear any ‘news’ from that source 🙂
But returning yet again to the hapless Mr Grier what does surprise me is how his few querrulous and tentative seekings of approval from ‘Ramsey’ managed to turn into such a long anonymous Hotmail email from John Doe or whatever fictitious name it was in. One can only guess at what other information is on the 2 hour secret tape or, indeed, on the many others that wee Craigie undoubtedly has in his arsenal yet to be deployed.
Still at a guess I would think that Media House has had dealings with David Murray, Old Rangers, New Rangers, Craig Whyte, Charles Green and, of course, D&P. There may be many others but this story has a long way to run yet and time will tell.
Don’t forget the connection between Murray and Jack Irvine, MD of Media House. It was Murray who gave Irvine £1m to launch, from Ibrox Park, the now defunct Sunday newspaper. When he was at the Sun as editor Irvine was frequently Murray’s guest at Ibrox and that’s how the asociation started. Having talked Rupert Murdoch into appointing him as MD at News International in Kinning Park, Irvine then ditched Murdoch for Murray’s money. Ah the murky wheels. . .
C’mon Craigie, release the video version: “Billy Liar”.
Busy day today. I’m going with the exec summary. 😎
Where is the ‘honour among thieves’. Oh yes; it never existed. The only thing that binds them together is the mutual desire to get away with it.
The Rangers case is just a much more high profile example of what happens to companies that over extend themselves and fall into the hands of Venture Capitalists or whatever name these people call themselves.
Whyte clearly thought he was being cut out of things or being set up as a scapegoat so took defensive action. I wonder how many others have done the same.
i think everyone will be asuming that their conversations are being recorded, it makes it harder to keep a conspiracy going and with Whyte puting them in the spotlight D&P may be tempted to try to shift atention to other players in this saga.
The demise of old Rangers still has years to run, a good chance it will outlast the New Rangers.
This has the makings of the best business case study ever. Poor Corporate govenance, dirty deeds and so much of it in the Public domain.
Paul: Thanks for this. It clarifies a lot of my thoughts and questions on the matter.
I can’t help wondering whether the recordings started after Whyte was labelled an unreliable witness in one of his other cases. Maybe there is a lot more to come.
Good point cmh64. Might have concentrated Craigies’ thinking.
Typo…”… Craigie’s thinking”
This is a genuine question. What if the conversation was recorded inadvertantly, like the film ‘Blow Up’, where David Hemmings character photographs what maybe a murder, by accident? What if the recording device was at another table? How would this effect it”s validity?
Testing, testing… My posts are not coming up. The postman must be late.
I gie up.
Comment by JohnBhoy
Hawkeyethegnu, Ally wishes he wisnae recorded, inadvertently or otherwise: “it’s time we got an away victory” but that it’s not going to be easy, “especially away from home.” (http://www.rangers.co.uk/news/headlines/item/2490-winning-will-end-questions). There are no flies on our Ally.