To Nicola Sturgeon re. Docherty case

This is an open letter to the First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon
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Date: 11-Aug-2016

<b>Your ref: 2016/0025583</b>

Dear Ms Sturgeon,

<b>Open Letter: Your refusal to uphold the rule of law</b>

Thank you for your acknowledgement of my letter received by you on 5 August, 2016.

The hounding of the Docherty family which was unlawfully instigated by Police Scotland after Brian Docherty reported a man who offered him £25,000 for "access" to his four-year-old autistic son continues; the four Docherty children remain in ‘care' in the Republic of Ireland; their perfectly sane parents are remorselessly pursued. with a view to sectioning them (shades of the old USSR); Scottish institutions sink further and further into a mire of corruption. as no attempt is made to remove the rogue elements busily engaged in debasing them; and you indicate. by off-loading the responsibility onto other, less potentially effective, shoulders, that all this has nothing to do with you.

Are you happy to be presiding over a country where the powers of law enforcement are conferred, in the words of prominent Scottish journalist and supporter of the SNP, Kevin McKenna, on a “feral and out-of-control police force” which, armed with guns and accountable to nobody but itself, is “running amok"? Which, far from maintaining law and order, has apparently entered into a criminal conspiracy with a foreign government to attack those whose lives and property it is paid to protect?

What kind of independent Scotland do you envisage? Is it one where the rule of law no longer holds sway? Where criminals masquerading as police officers terrorise the population, and children can be stolen, screaming, from their parents by virtue of fabricated “concern reports”?

Please nate, once again: Janice and Brian Docherty have never been accused of any crime. No valid case against them has been advanced in a Scottish court. No trial has taking place, or, indeed is likely to take place. You would not, therefore, be violating the separation of powers. Should you choose to intervene on their behalf you would simply be upholding the rule of law and the right of law-abiding people to be left in peace.

Again, there is no evidence, beyond unsubstantiated allegations elicited by Police Scotland and dismissed out of hand by an inconveniently honest judge in an irish court, to suggest that Janice and Brian Docherty are anything but irreproachable parents. Indeed, the appointed guardian <i>ad litem</i> has written to them as follows: "From my own perspective as a children's Guardian Ad Litem. i can assure you that I believe. and have informed the court. that you have four wonderful children whose presentation. abilities. sensitivity and care for one another is testament to you both and the loving which you have provided to the children." You would, therefore, only be endorsing this lady’s unbiased professional opinion, should you intervene with the irish government to restore the Docherty children to their loving parents.

You know, and the Dochertys know, and those of us who have been writing to you on behalf of the Dochertys know, that there is no lawful reason for you to refrain from offering this family your assistance. Please stop spinning 'the line' that there is.

Yours sincerely.

Gillian Swanson MA (Oxon)