Salmond's lawyer to resign as Dean of Faculty of Advocates

Alex Salmond’s lawyer will resign from his position as Dean of the Faculty of Advocates after he was recorded on a train naming two of his client’s accusers.

Gordon Jackson QC said he will step down from his role at the faculty – the trade body for the majority of Scotland’s advocates and QCs – by the end of June at the latest.

He has already referred himself to Scotland’s legal watchdog after recorded remarks he made on a Glasgow-Edinburgh train while the former first minister’s trial was ongoing were published.

Jackson, a former Labour MSP, led Salmond’s successful defence against 13 sexual offence charges in the High Court.

Mobile phone footage showed Jackson naming two of the nine complainants despite their identities being strictly protected by law.

Speaking to an unnamed person within earshot of other rail passengers, he went into further personal details that made one of the women easy to identify.

Jackson’s comments, revealed by the Sunday Times, disparaged one of the women accusing Salmond as a “flake” who he thought people might find unlikeable.

He was also heard discussing court tactics to discredit a witness, saying: “All I need to do is put a smell on her.”

The lawyer went on to describe his client Salmond as “an objectionable bully” and seemed to call him a “sex pest”, although the recording is not clear and Jackson subsequently denied that was his view.

Last weekend, he apologised for the “distress and difficulties which have been caused” by the revelations as he referred himself to the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission.

In a new statement on Friday, Jackson said: “I have intimated my decision to resign as Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, with effect from 30 June, at the latest.

“It would not, however, be appropriate for me to remain as Dean at a time when the faculty was considering disciplinary proceedings regarding my conduct

“Accordingly, if, before that date, the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission remits the recent complaint for consideration by the faculty’s complaints committee, I will stand down as Dean immediately.

“I do not intend to make any further comment.”