Central Scotland News AgencyA former top SNP politician faces jail after being found guilty by a jury of sexually assaulting five young men and boys aged 15 to 22.
Jordan Linden, 30, former leader of North Lanarkshire Council and earlier chair of the Scottish Youth Parliament, was also convicted by a jury of causing fear and alarm and of directing unwanted sexual communications towards seven teenagers aged from 14, including sending pictures of himself in a bubble bath and more explicit images.
The offences spanned ten years from 2011 to 2021 during Linden’s time at North Lanarkshire, the youth parliament and the SNP’s youth wing, Young Scots for Independence.
Linden looked shocked and appeared to choke back tears in the dock as the verdicts were announced. Four of the five sexual assault verdicts were unanimous.
He was found not guilty, unanimously, of a sixth charge of sexual assault and was also acquitted, unanimously, of five other charges of stalking and sexual assault.
Sheriff Christopher Shead deferred sentence to May 5 for reports and continued bail.
He told him: “The court will have to consider the full range of disposals.”
Linden’s counsel David Moggach KC reserved mitigation.
Leaving the court, Linden told a reporter: “I have no comment to make at this time.”
Linden, of Bellshill, had denied all the charges – saying they either did not take place, or were consensual.
He insisted: “If they tell me no, it means no.”
He said he felt “gutted, betrayed, burned and done over” at being accused.
After a seven-day trial, the jury at Falkirk Sheriff Court debated for less than four hours to reach the verdicts.
The court heard that the victims had been touched inappropriately and sent the partially naked and sometimes explicit selfies by Linden.
Witnesses spoke of Linden getting into beds or bunks with them, or trying to pull at their belts and waistbands.
One man, who joined the SYP at the same time as Linden when they were both 15 said Linden’s touching, on the face or the cheek or the neck, was “relentless” but when he told a youth worker at the parliament it was dismissed as “just Jordan”.
He said that despite him making it “abundantly clear” he was straight, Linden phoned him in the middle of the night “panting”, sent him photographs of his genitals, touched his bottom, tried to pull his trousers down, and poked him, even in meetings.
He said what he termed “the Just Jordan behaviour” became more prevalent as time went on, and made him feel vulnerable and “sick to the stomach”. He eventually removed himself from the Youth Parliament to “take himself out of the equation”.
A man, who was just 14 at the time, said Linden cornered him in a hotel room as he was getting ready for a social event, poking and prodding him, and sent him suggestive and flirtatious messages and pictures on Snapchat including “almost but not quite nude” selfies in the bath.
The man told the jury that when Linden stepped down as chairman of the youth parliament in 2016, he had left in tears because of the way it was announced.
He said a parliament board member had made a speech at the parliamentary session, in Stornoway, suggesting Linden had stepped down for “unfair reasons”.
Another witness, who was 15, said he’d received pictures from Linden showing a “bulge” in his boxers.
He said when Linden was “thanked profusely” at the Stornoway session, he began to fear a “Governmental cover-up”.
A man, who is now 29, recalled a “traumatic evening” in August 2018 – a year after Linden became an SNP councillor – when they had been at the politician’s flat in Bellshill, Lanarkshire, drinking and watching a film.
They later shared a bed, and he “vomited in disgust” after waking up to find Linden performing a sex act on him.
One man said that when he was 18, at a Gay Pride afterparty in Dundee in 2019 involving members of the SNP’s LGBT wing Out for Independence, a “rambling and intoxicated” Linden had followed him into a bathroom, locked the door, and tried to get him to urinate in front of him while biting and kissing his ear and trying to touch his crotch.
The court heard that the net began to close on Linden in 2023 after a fellow North Lanarkshire councillor went to police because he “did not feel confident” that reports he had made within the party from 2022 onwards would be dealt with appropriately.
The man said that when he was a teenager, Linden had climbed into his bunk, caressed him and kissed his neck at a hostel in Barcelona while he, Linden, and other members of the SNP youth wing were in Catalonia for a national day event.
He said Linden said rose over the next few years from being an SNP group assistant business manager to being North Lanarkshire council leader and “was always trying to be over-friendly”.
The man said he too was elected as a North Lanarkshire councillor but claimed that before or after meetings Linden regularly made comments about his suit trousers or his tops being “tight” – so much that he could not play a full part as a councillor.
He said that everywhere he went for help in the SNP he was ignored or the matter was downplayed.
Other witnesses also said their complaints about him were downplayed or ignored by adults in the organisation.
Several said they had been reluctant to complain about Linden because of his power and sway in the Youth Parliament and the SNP.
The court heard Linden joined the Scottish Youth Parliament in 2011 – when he was still 15 – to make friends and “stand up for people similar to myself who were openly gay”.
He became chairman in 2015 and stepped down the following year after explicit images of himself began to circulate amongst its 150 members, some as young as 14, resulting in the Youth Parliament commissioning an investigation by a private law firm in line with policy at the time.
Linden denied circulating the images.
In the witness box, he described himself as a hugger and said he would often greet people with a kiss on the cheek, but insisted he’d “never had an adverse reaction” to this.
He admitted sending photographs to other MSYPs of himself having a bubble bath but said they were “generic and not inappropriate”.
He denied that any of his conduct was criminal saying he was just “young… naive and silly.”
Linden became an SNP councillor for the Bellshill ward during the 2017 local elections.
He was elected leader of North Lanarkshire Council in May 2022 but resigned from the post a few weeks later when allegations emerged.
He was later reported to be working as a karaoke host.
He was arrested in February 2024.
He was granted bail and will return to court to be sentenced on May 5.
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