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Part 4: Release of Information


This post brings to an end the easy part of setting out the story of Willie McRae’s death in the barest of details whilst challenging or querying nothing of the official story.  This will give us the platform on which we can build.

Douglas Skelton, writing in the Mirror in 2005, summarised why many wanted more information.

Skelton Extract 1AJPG
From the time of his death being listed as suicide there have been repeated calls for a Fatal Accident Inquiry (FAI) and for the release of more information. 

There has been no FAI although, had he died in England, such an inquiry would have been mandatory. 

Despite many calls only very limited information has been made public.

Some headlines are,

Head Scotsman 1987
1987 Scotsman		 Head SP 1990
1990 Sunday Post

Head PandJ 1990
1990 Press and Journal
 Head SoS 2005
2005 Scotland on Sunday

Head Ev Times 2010
2010 Evening Times

As we saw in Part 1 in December 2014 there are still articles appearing in the press. Not only have the press and parliamentarians asked for information, individuals have used Freedom of Information (FOI).  From what I read FOI requests are often turned down for apparently spurious reasons.  The McRae case is no different.

Some information – we will look at that later - is available, and we are thankful for this but there appears to be great reluctance to be open.  Many use this as support for the contention that the authorities have ‘something’ to hide. 

Only a few months ago, a Mr Delamore asked Police Scotland for some very basic information,

- the time at which photographs [of the crash scene] were taken
- the time at which the car was removed [from the crash scene]
- the time of the post-mortem

but his FOI request was rejected using the following exemption,

it is never in the public interest to disclose information that gives criminals an advantage over the police and prejudices the police forces' ability to prevent and detect crime, apprehend or prosecute offenders. Nor is it in the public interest to put members of the public or police staff at risk.

Again, there may be good reasons why this apparently straightforward information must be kept out of the public domain.  Unfortunately, this fuels the conspiracy theories.


This brings to an end my introductory posts which give very basic details only about Willie McRae.  Now we can move on and look much more closely at the issues which have given rise to concerns that Willie McRae did not commit suicide.

Where I, and you, will end up time will tell.

[originally posted 6 December 2014]

© CalumCarr 2014
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Copyright over this article is retained by me, CalumCarr.

Please feel free to reproduce extracts and images provided you attribute the words and images to me taking into account the provisos below.

If you wish to use more than one half of the article then contact me for permission at calumsblogATgmailDOTcom.

Copyright of the images is retained by their respective owners and to this end I name: The Mirror Group, the Scotsman, Scotland on Sunday, the Sunday Post, Evening Times and Press and Journal.

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