Willie McRae Investigations

Between December 2014 and August 2015 I investigated the death in 1985 of lawyer and SNP politician, Willie McRae.   All my work was published on my blog  "calumcarr on .... whatever" which is now closed. This work is now republished here. My writing did not cover the entire case but it is a very detailed study over 36 posts. I have checked to ensure links are still live and have corrected obvious spelling mistakes. Almost certainly, I will have missed some mistakes and created new mistakes for which I apologise. Other than these very minor changes, the posts are republished here as they were originally posted. The work is presented here in chronological order.   Unfortunately, to achieve this, the original publishing dates have been removed and all comments lost. In preparing the posts for the archive I have come across the occasional error of logic, where a conclusion may be incorrect. I have left these untouched so the posts read as did the original...

Willie McRae: born 18 May 1923; died 7 April 1985 This we know for certain but much else in his life and death is open to conjecture. What is fact or fiction? Truth or lies? Openness or obfuscation? Will we ever know? Probably not but in this series – may be 1 post or 20 posts depending on my enthusiasm – I want to look back and review his story.  The best way to ensure I keep going with my review is to write and post as I go on.   You, my readers, are key to my continuing! I must have read about Willie in the 80s but I only became aware of him on Sunday past when the Sunday Express published a story more than 24 years after his death. [ Original source ; archived source ] Of course, we note the very important, … it was claimed last night. There’s nothing definite here but you can start to see that McRae’s life might not be straightforward. Within the rest of the article there is more. So here we have claims that he was killed: - by drug smugglers - by security services...

This is another scene-setting post.   To launch into all the confusions and contradictions now would lead to our getting totally lost in a mishmash of facts, lies and conjecture.  Better that I outline the basics first and then go back and look in more detail.  I hope Part 4 will start this more detailed process but I’m not sure of my path yet.  Time spent well now will bear fruit.  Also because of the complexity of this case each detailed post is likely to take me several days to write.  Please bear with me. -------------- On Friday, 5th April 1985 about 6.30pm, Willie McRae set out from Glasgow to his holiday home near Dornie in Wester Ross – about a 170 mile drive.  Almost the entire drive was on single carriageway roads with much of the driving being in the dark.  Sunset would have been about 8.05pm [based on sunset being that time on 6th April 2015].  Google maps estimates the driving time as 3h 55min.  He should have arrived s...

This post continues with my plan to give the basics about McRae’s death.  The first two posts give an brief introduction and then a description of his last journey.  Today we look at the authorities’ decisions to label his death as suicide.  In other posts I’ll look in more detail at the inconsistencies and confusions which have given rise to belief, among many, that McRae was murdered. I need to state that I have an open mind; I come with no agenda other than to pick my way honestly through the morass of words written since 1985.  Too much in the past appears to have been written from various fixed positions.   When I write about politics, Scottish independence or my faith I write from a fixed position.  I can’t do that here.  I’m not writing to change anyone’s mind.  I want to understand, as best I can, what happened to Willie and writing here is the best way for me to continue and complete my task.    Now in the last post we...

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. 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, 1987 Scotsman 1990 Sunday Post 1990 Press and Journal   2005 Scotland on Sunday 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 Informa...

Strange as it may seem there is even doubt about where Willie McRae’s car came off the road. In this 5th post, but first post of any real depth, we shall - look in great detail at all possible roadside features which could be close to the crash site, - see the sites themselves in aerial and streetview mode, - see old video of the two sites, - see what physical evidence there is to tie each site to the actual crash site, - seen how the official and Coutts site came to be - pose two major questions - and a wee bit more and I will be only scratching the surface of this mystery. Before we start we should probably take a little detour to see how the official and Coutts site came to be. Alex Main in the Scotsman wrote about this [highlighted area] on 7 April 1987. and thus the official and Coutts’ sites were born ….. …. and still we talk of them! Again I must stress that I come to this with no agenda.  I don’t know what happened to Willie McRae: this and subsequent posts are my journey o...