''Her Majesty's Advocate v Andrew Coulson'' was the trial of

Andy Coulson Andrew Edward Coulson (born 21 January 1968) is an English journalist and political strategist. Coulson was the editor of the ''News of the World'' from 2003 until his resignation in 2007, following the conviction of one of the newspaper's repo ...

, a former editor of the ''

News of the World The ''News of the World'' was a weekly national Tabloid journalism#Red tops, red top Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid newspaper published every Sunday in the United Kingdom from 1843 to 2011. It was at one time the world's highest-selling En ...

'' and former Director of Communications for

David Cameron David William Donald Cameron (born 9 October 1966) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016. He previously served as Leader o ...

, on charges of

perjury Perjury (also known as foreswearing) is the intentional act of swearing a false oath or falsifying an affirmation to tell the truth, whether spoken or in writing, concerning matters material to an official proceeding."Perjury The act or an inst ...

. He was detained by

Strathclyde Police Strathclyde Police was the territorial police force responsible for the Scottish council areas of Argyll and Bute, City of Glasgow, East Ayrshire, East Dunbartonshire, East Renfrewshire, Inverclyde, North Ayrshire, North Lanarkshire, Renfrewshir ...

on 30 May 2012 in London, and taken to

Helen Street police station {{Use British English, date=March 2018 Helen Street police station, also known as Govan police station, in the Craigton (greater Govan) district of Glasgow, is the most secure police station in Scotland. It is used for example for detaining susp ...

in Glasgow. He was later charged with having committed perjury in 2010 during ''

HM Advocate v Sheridan and Sheridan ''Her Majesty's Advocate v Thomas Sheridan and Gail Sheridan'' was the 2010 criminal prosecution of Tommy Sheridan, a former Member of the Scottish Parliament and his wife Gail Sheridan for perjury in relation to the earlier civil case '' Sheridan ...

He appeared at

Glasgow Sheriff Court Glasgow Sheriff Court is a sheriff court in the Gorbals ( Laurieston) area of Glasgow, within the sheriffdom of Glasgow and Strathkelvin. It is reputedly the busiest court in Europe. History The new court was commissioned to replace the Old Sh ...

on 13 June 2013 in private, represented by

Richard Keen Richard Sanderson Keen, Baron Keen of Elie (born 29 March 1954) is a British lawyer and Conservative Party politician. He was Advocate General for Scotland from May 2015 until his resignation on 16 September 2020. Early life Keen was educated ...

QC; no plea or declaration was made and he was given bail. There was a ban on reporting this at the time, but it was challenged by some media outlets and lifted a few days later. On 6 August a preliminary hearing took place at Glasgow High Court, he was not present, but the indictment was made public. The trial was scheduled to begin on 21 April 2015, and to last 6 weeks. It was postponed because of the general election, and eventually started on 15 May 2015 at the Edinburgh High Court, with a jury of nine men and six women, presided over by judge

David Burns, Lord Burns David Spencer Burns, Lord Burns (born 1952) is a Senator of the College of Justice. Burns was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in 1977 and became a Queen's Counsel in 1991. Before admission, he worked as a legal assistant in New York and Ca ...

, Coulson was represented by Murdo MacLeod QC. On 1 June 2015, the judge acquitted Coulson. However, the acquittal was suspended while the Crown considered whether to appeal the decision and was therefore not announced until 3 June. Explaining his ruling, Lord Burns said that for Coulson to be found guilty it was necessary for the Crown to prove that the allegedly untrue evidence he had given at the 2010 Sheridan trial had been relevant to the issues in it. The judge added that it was for him, and not the jury, to decide on this aspect of the case and that the Crown’s legal submissions had failed to satisfy him that Coulson’s evidence had been sufficiently relevant to the Sheridan trial. HM Advocate v Coulson

015 Fifteen or 15 may refer to: *15 (number), the natural number following 14 and preceding 16 *one of the years 15 BC, AD 15, 1915, 2015 Music *Fifteen (band), a punk rock band Albums * ''15'' (Buckcherry album), 2005 * ''15'' (Ani Lorak album ...

ScotHC HCJAC_49 (3 June 2015)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Coulson Perjury High Court of Justiciary cases 2015 in Scotland News of the World Criminal trials that ended in acquittal Trials of political people 2015 in United Kingdom case law

See also

References