Sheriff who granted warrants in botched Rangers probe allegedly held shares in club

Russell Findlay, the Scottish Conservative spokesman on community safety, raised the matter following allegations in The Times which suggested that Sheriff Lindsay Wood held shares in Rangers’ old parent company which were rendered worthless when the club went into administration in 2012.

The newspaper claimed to have seen records from 2008 showing that Sheriff Wood held 110 shares.

He signed off on 22 warrants during the botched investigation into the takeover of Rangers between 2013 and 2015. One of them allowed officers to raid the offices in London of Holman Fenwick Willan, the law firm representing administrators Duff & Phelps. It was later found to be unlawful and made “without proper safeguards”.

It had been requested by detective chief inspector Jim Robertson, who it is claimed wore Rangers cufflinks while conducting interviews.

Mr Findlay said: “This represents a glaring judicial conflict of interest in the Rangers malicious prosecution scandal. It seems there was a perfect storm of a Rangers-supporting police officer, a Rangers-supporting sheriff and Crown Office prosecutors who pursued innocent men with reckless disregard for the evidence, leaving taxpayers with a bill for tens of millions of pounds and no one being held to account.

“A register of judicial recusals was introduced in Scotland seven years ago for circumstances such as these, and I would expect Lord Carloway to establish why there was no voluntary recusal by Sheriff Wood.”

A spokeswoman for the Judicial Office for Scotland told the newspaper: “In making a judicial decision, sheriffs must carefully consider the facts before them and take full account of the unique circumstances of each individual case, applying the law without bias or prejudice.

“Judges can recuse themselves from proceedings on certain grounds — or parties to a case can object to a judge’s involvement.

“If a party is not satisfied with a judicial decision, it can be appealed to a higher court.”