31/08/2011 Newsnight Scotland

expensive VAT cuts. OK thank you On Newsnight Scotland: In today's

Neil Lennon case, the assault charge against this man was found

not proven. Celtic say they find the acquittal difficult to

comprehend. We ask a leading QC, what he makes of the verdict.

And, ANOTHER twist in the tram saga, as we ask the leader of Edinburgh

City Council under what circumstances she would consider

resigning. Good Evening. Today, the case

against a Hearts fan accused of carrying out a sectarian attack on

the Celtic manager, Neil Lennon, during a football match was found

not proven. Instead, John Wilson was found guilty of breach of the

peace by running onto the pitch at Tynecastle last May where thousands

of football fans witnessed Wilson shouting and swearing at the Celtic

manager. Celtic football club said this evening they find the

acquittal of the charge of assault difficult to comprehend. Reevel

Alderson has this report. The mid week match at Tynecastle

was highly charged, Celtic needed to win to maintain their challenge

for the league title. Outside there was evidence of tension between

rival fans. Inside, BBC reporters heard sectarian chanting from both

sides. This was from the Hearts' fans.

Then, with Celtic having scored their second goal, John Wilson was

seen clearly leaping the barrier on to the pitch and running towards

Neil Lennon. In court, Wilson admitted to lunging at Lennon in

front of 16,000 fans. He admitted breach of the peace, but denied

using the words Fenian bastard which would have meant the offences

were sectarian and aggravation which would have carried a more

severe sentence. The jury took the sectarian element out of the breach

of the peace charge. But they acquitted Wilson completely on the

charge of assault which they had witnessed on video, a verdict which

has baffled senior lawyers. With me is the QC Paul McBride.

What do you make of the verdict? It's inexplicable. This was a well

presented prosecution case, he was seen live on television assaulting

Neil Lennon. He admitted in evidence lunging towards him, he

wrote Neil Lennon a letter of apology and his own counsel

accepted the issue was whether he used inappropriate language.

Against that background of all of that the they acquit him of the

assault he admitted. The verdict is utterly inexplicable. I haven't met

a single lawyer or lay person tonight who could understand this

verdict. You must have when you have been in court had verdicts you

didn't expect? Yeah, all the time. And that is the function of a jury

and that's why we respect what jurors do. I have never heard of a

case where an accused person has admitted a crime, the jury is told

by his own counsel he accepts that part of the charge but the jury

still let him off. It's quite baffling tonight and I think it's

cast a long shadow on the Scottish legal system this evening. Do you

think it is that significant, presumably because very few people

have interactions with the court and this is high profile and people

will be surprised by the jury verdict, do you think this actually

could do damage to court reputation? It does some damage,

it's also more troubling than that. The Lord Advocate has put a huge

amount of effort in to tackling sectarian crime. This Government

has put a huge amount of of effort into tackling sectarian crime,

First Minister doing their very best. Verdicts like this undermine

it and that's why all the political parties have to get together and

support the SNP in their quest to put this kind of activity to bed.

Was the fact that a sectarian element was part of both charges he

faced, do you think that muddied the waters and was

counterproductive or is that not the case? Absolutely not. It's jury

decide whether the sectarian element remains or not. If it

doesn't remain, they delete it. What they should have done if

they're not satisfied in the sectarian element is return a

verdict of guilty of assault under deleagues of those words, it's

perfectly simple. Briefly, does this again open up the question

about whether or not we should be able to talk to jurors about why

they make the choices they make? Yes there is an issue about that.

We have juries who don't have to read, write and count and may be

full of prejudices, unlike other countries, we may have to revisit

this area again. Thank you very much.

Edinburgh Councillors meet again on Friday for another chance to decide

the future of the city's tram line. A week ago, thanks to the absention

of SNP members of the ruling coaltion, councillors voted for a

truncated route ending at Haymarket, but today the SNP group had a

rethink and will now back its Lib Dem partners. David Allison reports

how this conversion on the route to St Andrews Square came about.

Absurd, not the words of an overzealous hack, rather the

considered view of the Finance Secretary John Swinney. The

Government was finally spurred into action after Edinburgh council

voted to finish the tram line at Haymarket, rather than bring it

along Scotland's most famous street into the city centre. With the

project changed from what it been agreed the Scottish Government

threatened to stop the flow of money with the cancellation of the

last �72 million instalment of a total allocation of �500 million.

The move brought a dose of reality into a situation which was already

the subject of plenty of jokes on the Edinburgh Fringe, even before

the heady events of last Thursday. We believe the Haymarket option can

be negotiated with the contractor and we give that the officials to

get on with that and get that contract sorted out and before the

end of August. It's a devastating decision for the city and I don't

think either people willfully misunderstood the information they

were given or they genuinely did not understand the repercussions.

For a Government which prides itself on getting procurement right

such as the M74 and M80, the fiasco was a serious embarrassment. The

Finance Secretary was all too aware that the council's ruling Lib Dem

SNP coalition lost Thursday's vote because the SNP group abstained.

The SNP councillors have maintained a principled and consistent

opposition to the tram's project in the city of Edinburgh and what the

city, SNP council group decides to do in relation to this project is a

matter properly for them. I would say to all counselors in the city

is that I tkoeplt think anybody could look at the events of the

last few days to see an absurd decision that was taken by

Edinburgh City Council last Thursday, an absurd decision.

decision which would have meant special effects videos showing

trams on Prince' Street would be as close as we would ever get to the

real thing. The message from on high appears to have got through to

the SNP group leader. Nobody expected anybody in their right

mind would vote for a tram line to go from the airport and terminate

short of the city centre at Haymarket. That That took everybody

by surprise apart from those in the Labour group and Conservative group

who voted in that fashion. That's why we can in the allow this to

happen again. We can't run the risk these two groups will join forces

on Friday and reaffirm their original decision which defies

description. No longer will they refuse to take a view either way

and they've promised a vote with the Lib Dems to reinstate the St

Andrews square option. In the meantime, the trams are going

nowhere. Before we came on air I spoke to

the leader of the Edinburgh City Council, the Liberal Democrat Jenny

Dawe and asked her to clarify the costs of tonight. The costs of

going to St Andrews Square are �776 million, we had �545 million

originally, so that gives us a gap of �231 million. I know these sound

horrendous sums, but against the option of termination where you get

nothing and would have had an immediate impact of �161 in our

revenue budget and Haymarket which was never going to be a line that

is profit-making, in that context that's a price that's been arrived

at. It's been negotiated very hard with the consortium. There will

still be ongoing work with the consortium to see if there are bits

of that that can be negotiated down further, but at the moment that is

the price that we have. That's �15 million a year in interest

payments? That's right, yes. And we have looked at how we can meet

those interest payments and there are means within our current

budgets, there's a host of ways that we can meet it that don't mean

doing anything particularly new right now, but it does leave us

with about a 4.8 million revenue funding gap which we are looking at

potential borrowing as the means of covering that, though that doesn't

rule out other options. So, if at this stage you are saying these are

definitive figures on costings which may actually come down,

that's your opinion as you look to what could happen in this project,

can we look at some of the actual facts which might change that

financial picture. Are Lothian buses obliged to pay the subsidy

that you factored in here? That has been discussed with Lothian buses

and I know there has been much said about Lothian buses not knowing

what's going on and the rest of it. There have been discussions with

them about this. It's perfectly possible that figure will be

negotiated, but at the moment we do have a - we have factored in a cost

that would put upon Lothian buses... That cost is what? The figure as

far as I can recall was about �2.5 million. Possibly �2.7 million

factored in for that. If we look at what the contingency fund is for

the utilities disruption when you open up Prince' Street and

particularly when you go into Shandwick Place, what sort of

funding do you have in contingency for that? The risks has been moving

as there has been more intrusive work done, particularly on that

part of the route you mention. There have been more intrusive sort

of bore holes and looking at potential, what they're calling

conflicts with the route. So we are more certain than we were, but that

is - that's an area that is always subject to potential movement in

the price, because it's very, very difficult to quantify exactly

what's underneath a road until you actually get there. But do you see

the problem for people listening to this interview? Earlier on you said

these are definitive figures, and this is what we pay in interest.

Now you are conceding that actually once you start getting into areas

about contingency funds for utility costs, a fund I understand which is

already below the normal 10% in these projects, you are already

conceding that you could again be into multimillion pound questions,

you don't have the answers to at this stage? When you asked what the

costs were, those are the costs as at this moment. In this sort of

project there are always going to be potentially what people refer to

as unknown unknowns, things that we actually don't know are going to

happen. But every effort has been made to produce figures for us that

have been looked at by external organisations and have been

ratified by them, our officers have been working very hard with our

solicitors and our finance people to try to make sure that as far as

possible we have as definitive figures as we can, but the figures

that we have in the report are what we have to go by. There's a whole

swathe of background papers to that, most of which I have looked at in

some detail and I am satisfied that everything has been done at this

stage to minimise the possibility of increased costs. I can't say

definitively there will not be a different figure once things have

been worked on. It could go down as 50 you actually expect a cost to go

down rather than up, or do you have to concede that there are costs

coming much you have not factored in? No, I do not think there are

multi-million-pound costs. I think at this stage nobody can be certain

about these things. And as you will know from the past there had been

figures we got were definitive that turned out not to be. At this stage,

because of the better relationship we have with the consortium, and

with the excellent team of people we have working within the council

and outside the council, I am more confident that the figures we have

been given are at this moment the best possible figures we can get.

Do you accept that people listening to this would not share your

confidence? And actually, their scepticism would be backed by the

evidence of what has happened. Why should anybody have any confidence

in what you were saying this evening? For I have confidence in

the officers that had reduced the figures, in the external us past

organisations that have ratified them. That is all I can say, I have

looked at those figures very closely, I have heard how they had

been arrived at, and I have as much confidence as I possibly can in

that. Obviously, people have heard different figures quoted over the

months and years. And I can understand that they might be

dubious as to what certainty there is. I am not saying they are

absolutely certain, but I am saying that at this moment in time, I

respect the figures I have been given as being the result of many

hours, weeks and months of very hard work. And that our team has

been negotiating very hard with the consortium to pare down the costs

wherever possible. In 2007, of when you became the council leader, it

was said this project was signed. Since then, it has gone off the

rails. Do you think you are a popular figure in Edinburgh,

enjoying the confidence of local people? I have done what I felt has

been the right thing to do. I have taken action on this, brought about

the mediation towards the end of last year. I had acted in good

faith and that is all I can do. it is not all you can do. It is

clearly not all you can do. If you feel that local people have lost

confidence in what you have done, they had been misled and are

exasperated that public money has been wasted too ludicrous degree,

then obviously you have an option where you can say, I was in charge

of this, whether it is my fault or not the decent thing for me to do

would be to step down. Have you considered that? Quite the opposite.

Particularly since they Haymarket decision was made last Thursday. I

have had an enormous amount of public support that we should

pursue a beer and try to get this thing to the St Andrews Square

option. I and my group has kept the integrity of our decisions to go to

St Andrews Square. And I had done, to the best of my ability, what I

can to ensure we have a team of people who had been working hard to

now get those prices down as far as possible, to negotiate hard with

the consortium, build up a new relationship with the consortium.

And given that the choice before us now is termination or Haymarket or

St Andrews Square, so I had no doubt and I would say that 95 % of

my mailbag and the people that I meet in the street has been that we

should go to St Andrews Square. They think that is the right thing

we do and they are disappointed it did not happen last Friday. And I

very much hope that this Friday, that decision will be reversed and

it will be back to taking a tram project is to St Andrews Square.

But it is project does not go to the Budget you have outlined and

the timescale you have outlined, do you think it is then incumbent on

you to reconsider your a position? If that is an entirely different

situation you are now describing. I have put my faith in the figures we

have been given. I respect the organisations and the individuals

who have given us those figures. I believe the consortium has a new

relationship with us, it's and I certainly hope that we now have a

proper way forward. Obviously, if it all falls to pieces and suddenly

everything doubles in price, and nobody wants to go out and do that

work, if the relationship with the consortium breaks down, then

obviously, I would be considering what my role might have been in

that. But at the moment, I think I have done all it is possible.

Anything is a possibility in this world, that is not what I expect

happen. I expect the consortium to do as they have said, and work in

partnership with last to deliver the trams, to give us the

integrated, modern public transport system this city needs for

environmental and economic reasons. Thank you very much.

Just time for a quick look at tomorrow's papers. The Scotsman is

leading with the story we lead with tonight, not an assault, jury's

decision to clear fan off assault on Lennon. That is all for me. At

any good night to you. -- a very any good night to you. -- a very

Most of us will have another try day on Thursday, and another fairly

cloudy day. Southern Counties of England and Wales should have some

September sunshine. And by the afternoon it will feel quite

warning that some. Elsewhere, it will be cloudy. This other counties

of England should brighten up, there should be some good spells of

sunshine and in that sum it will feel quite warm. A bit of a breeze

picking up over the South West, but elsewhere it will feel very

pleasant. Temperatures easily going up to 21. Pretty grey tea in

Northern island, but here, every now then, we may get breaks in the

cloud and a think -- hint of sunshine. Some rain over the

Western Isles late in the day. The North East or South -- Scotland may

see some rain. But overall, cloudy but dry. The rain will spread more

widely across parts of the north on Friday. Meanwhile, in the South,

most of England and Wales should be even warmer on Friday. Temperatures