The Lord Boyd of Duncansby | |
---|---|
Solicitor General for Scotland | |
In office 1997–2000 | |
Monarch | Elizabeth II |
Preceded by | Paul Cullen |
Succeeded by | Neil Davidson |
Lord Advocate | |
In office 24 February 2000 –4 October 2006 | |
Monarch | Elizabeth II |
Preceded by | Lord Hardie |
Succeeded by | Elish Angiolini |
Senator of the College of Justice | |
In office 1 June 2012 –June 2024 | |
Monarch | Elizabeth II |
Member of the House of Lords Lord Temporal | |
In office 14 June 2006 –28 June 2012 | |
Monarch | Elizabeth II |
Personal details | |
Born | Colin Boyd 7 June 1953 |
Nationality | British |
Political party | Labour |
Alma mater | Edinburgh University |
Occupation | Judge |
Profession | Barrister |
Colin Boyd,Baron Boyd of Duncansby, PC (born 7 June 1953) is a former Scottish judge who was a Senator of the College of Justice from June 2012 to June 2024. He was Lord Advocate for Scotland from 24 February 2000 until his resignation on 4 October 2006. [1] On 11 April 2006,Downing Street announced that Colin Boyd would take a seat as a crossbench life peer; [2] however,he took the Labour whip after resigning as Lord Advocate. [3] He was formally introduced in the House of Lords on 3 July 2006. [4] On the day SNP leader Alex Salmond was elected First Minister of Scotland (16 May 2007),it was reported that Boyd was quitting the Scottish Bar to become a part-time consultant with public law solicitors Dundas &Wilson. He told the Glasgow Herald ,"This is a first. I don't think a Lord Advocate has ever done this—left the Bar and become a solicitor."
Lord Boyd's title is taken from Duncansby Head in Caithness –a favourite spot for family outings when he was a child living in Wick. He was educated at Wick High School and George Watson's College,Edinburgh,and graduated BA (Econ) from Manchester University in politics and economics,and LLB from Edinburgh University. He was a solicitor in private practice before being called to the Scottish Bar in 1983. Boyd was an Advocate Depute from 1993 to 1995 and took Silk as Queen's Counsel in 1995. He is a legal associate of the Royal Town Planning Institute. As an advocate he built up a practice in administrative law.
As a university student,he joined the Labour Party but left to join the breakaway Scottish Labour Party,sharing the SLP founder Jim Sillars' distrust of the mainstream Labour Party to follow through on its commitment to devolution. Boyd stood as a parliamentary candidate for the SLP at the 1979 general election in the Edinburgh Central constituency,but garnered only 176 votes. When the SLP disbanded,after its failure to make an impact at that election,he decided to rejoin the Labour Party rather than follow Sillars into the Scottish National Party. Following the 1997 general election,he was appointed Solicitor General for Scotland. He was promoted to Lord Advocate in 2000 upon the elevation of Andrew Hardie to the bench. He was appointed a Privy Counsellor in 2000.
Following the announcement on 11 April 2006 of Boyd's appointment to the House of Lords,his peerage nomination became a talking point in Scottish political circles. Opposition politicians stated that a peerage politicised the head of the judiciary. [5] Boyd defended the appointment:
I remain firmly committed to the full time role of Lord Advocate,leading the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service,and seeing through the programme of reform I initiated four years ago. Appointment to the House of Lords is a natural extension of my duties as Lord Advocate and a development which will allow me to represent Scotland's interests at home and at UK level.
In December 2006,after Boyd had been replaced as Lord Advocate by Elish Angiolini,First Minister Jack McConnell was questioned by the Metropolitan Police about his nomination of Boyd for a peerage. McConnell said he was "disappointed" over what he regarded as a "normal and straightforward nomination" becoming caught up in Scotland Yard's cash for peerages investigation. [6]
Lord Boyd of Duncansby's role as Lord Advocate featured leading the prosecution in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial between May 2000 and January 2001. Of the two defendants,one –Fhimah –was acquitted and the other –Megrahi –was convicted on 31 January 2001 of 270 counts of murder,and sentenced to 27 years in jail. Controversy continues to surround Megrahi's conviction despite the rejection of his appeal on 14 March 2002. Evidence presented at the trial has been called into question and doubts have been expressed about the reliability of several key prosecution witnesses. According to The Sunday Times of 23 October 2005 former Lord Advocate Lord Fraser of Carmyllie described one such witness as "not quite the full shilling" and "an apple short of a picnic". Boyd has demanded that Lord Fraser should issue a public statement clarifying what he actually said about this witness,and what he meant by those remarks.
In February 2006,Boyd was drawn into the detective constable Shirley McKie fingerprint controversy,when she was awarded £750,000 compensation in an out-of-court settlement. As Solicitor General,Boyd was responsible for the prosecution of DC McKie after she denied an accusation by Scottish Criminal Record Office (SCRO) fingerprint officers that she left her thumb print at a murder scene in January 1997. McKie was arrested in March 1998,charged with perjury but at her trial in May 1999 the SCRO fingerprint evidence was rejected,and she was acquitted.
A senior Scottish police officer,James Mackay QPM,was appointed in June 2000 by the Crown Office to investigate the matter. Mackay's interim report in August 2000 suggested that the evidence given in court by the four SCRO personnel amounted to 'collective manipulation and collective collusion'. As a result,the four fingerprint officers were immediately suspended by SCRO,and Scottish ministers were informed. Mackay's final confidential report was presented to the Lord Advocate in October 2000. The report remained under wraps until extracts were published in the Scotsman newspaper in February 2006. Mackay had concluded that 'cover-up and criminality' had taken place at SCRO and recommended that the four fingerprint officers should be prosecuted. However,the Scotsman also revealed that Boyd had decided in September 2001 to take no action in response to Mackay's recommendation,and the four SCRO officers were reinstated.
In June 2007,the same newspaper raised questions over to what extent Boyd's decision not to prosecute the SCRO personnel in the autumn of 2000 was related to the then ongoing Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial,where he was leading the prosecution. With the eyes of the world focused upon the Scottish judicial system,it could have undermined the Crown's case to have the SCRO scrutinized and its fingerprint experts prosecuted for covering up acts of criminality. [7] Veteran Lockerbie campaigner and retired Labour MP Tam Dalyell asked Boyd 'to consider his position',while Michael Russell MSP insisted that Boyd could not continue as Lord Advocate. [8]
Boyd's successor as Lord Advocate,Elish Angiolini,has agreed to appear before the Fingerprint Inquiry which began on 2 June 2009. [9]
On 1 June 2012,it was announced Boyd would be appointed a Senator of the College of Justice. [10] On 7 December 2021,it was announced that Boyd would be appointed to the Inner House of the Court of Session with effect from 5 January 2022. [11] He retired in 2024. [12]
Boyd contributed to a book The Legal Aspects of Devolution published just before the 1997 general election.
Peter Lovat Fraser,Baron Fraser of Carmyllie,PC,QC was a Scottish politician and advocate.
Andrew Rutherford Hardie,Baron Hardie,is a former Senator of the College of Justice,a judge of the Supreme Courts of Scotland,and a former Lord Advocate,the country's senior Law Officer. He led the prosecution team in the preparation of the original Lockerbie bombing trial,but resigned as Lord Advocate shortly before the trial commenced in 2000.
Abdelbaset Ali Mohamed al-Megrahi was a Libyan who was head of security for Libyan Arab Airlines,director of the Centre for Strategic Studies in Tripoli,Libya,and an alleged Libyan intelligence officer. On 31 January 2001,Megrahi was convicted,by a panel of three Scottish judges sitting in a special court at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands,of 270 counts of murder for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie,Scotland,on 21 December 1988 and was sentenced to life imprisonment. His co-accused,Lamin Khalifah Fhimah,was found not guilty and was acquitted.
The Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial began on 3 May 2000,more than 11 years after the destruction of Pan Am Flight 103 on 21 December 1988. The 36-week bench trial took place at a specially convened Scottish Court in the Netherlands set up under Scots law and held at a disused United States Air Force base called Camp Zeist near Utrecht.
The investigation into the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 began after Pan Am Flight 103,en route from Frankfurt to Detroit with stopovers in London and New York City,was blown up at 19:03 on 21 December 1988 over Lockerbie in Dumfries and Galloway,Scotland. The perpetrators had intended the plane to crash into the sea,destroying any traceable evidence,but the late departure time of the aircraft meant that its explosion over land left a veritable trail of evidence. The investigation led to the prosecution,conviction,and imprisonment of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.
Pan Am Flight 103 conspiracy theories suggest a number of possible explanations for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 on December 21,1988. Some of the theories preceded the official investigation by Scottish police and the FBI;others arose from different interpretation of evidence presented at Libyan agent Abdelbaset al-Megrahi's 2000–2001 trial;yet others have been developed independently by individuals and organisations outside the official investigation.
Edwin Bollier and his partner,Erwin Meister,founded Mebo Telecommunications AG in Zürich,Switzerland in 1969.
William Taylor,KC has been a Scottish advocate since 1971 and now KC since 1986. He has also been a barrister in England and Wales since 1990 and a Queen's Counsel there since 1998. He has specialised in criminal defence work since the 1980s.
Robert Black is a Scottish lawyer who is Professor Emeritus of Scots Law at the University of Edinburgh. He has been an Advocate in Scotland since 1972,was in practice at the Bar and became a QC in 1987.
James Alexander Mackay QPM retired as Deputy Chief Constable of Tayside Police in 2001. He has had considerable experience of criminal investigation and major inquiries. He is especially interested in forensic science and has served on national committees particularly in the field of DNA in police investigation.
Shirley McKie is a former Scottish police detective who was accused by fingerprint analysis staff of the Scottish Criminal Record Office (SCRO) of leaving her thumb print on the bathroom door frame of a murder crime-scene in Kilmarnock on 14 January 1997. She denied she had ever been in the house of murder victim Marion Ross,but Detective Constable McKie was initially suspended,then sacked,then arrested by Strathclyde Police in 1998,and tried and acquitted in 1999. A scandal subsequently developed because of allegations of misconduct on the part of the SCRO and the police.
Criminal Justice Information Services is a department of the Scottish Police Services Authority. Previously called the Scottish Criminal Record Office (SCRO),it established in 1960 with a mission statement "To manage information for the Scottish Police Service,wider Criminal Justice Community and the public to assist in the prevention and detection of crime and enhance public safety." The organisation is based at Pacific Quay in Glasgow,under current Director John McLean.
Jimmy McDougall was Procurator Fiscal in Dumfries when Pan Am Flight 103 crashed at Lockerbie,Scotland,on 21 December 1988 killing all 243 passengers and 16 crew on board,as well as 11 people in the town of Lockerbie.
Tony Gauci was the proprietor of Mary's House,a clothes shop in Sliema,Malta,who was a witness in the prosecution of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi in relation to the Lockerbie Bombing.
Pan Am Flight 103 (PA103/PAA103) was a regularly scheduled Pan Am transatlantic flight from Frankfurt to Detroit via a stopover in London and another in New York City. The transatlantic leg of the route was operated by Clipper Maid of the Seas,a Boeing 747 registered N739PA. Shortly after 19:00 on 21 December 1988,while the aircraft was in flight over the Scottish town of Lockerbie,it was destroyed by a bomb,killing all 243 passengers and 16 crew in what became known as the Lockerbie bombing. Large sections of the aircraft crashed in a residential street in Lockerbie,killing 11 residents. With a total of 270 fatalities,it is the deadliest terrorist attack in the history of the United Kingdom.
Alan Turnbull,Lord Turnbull is a Scottish lawyer,and a Senator of the College of Justice,a judge of the country's Supreme Courts. He was one of the lead prosecutors in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial.
Alastair Peter Campbell,Lord Bracadale is a retired senior Scottish judge.
Events from the year 2003 in Scotland.
Events from the year 2002 in Scotland.
Events from the year 2001 in Scotland.