"I do not want to report that the Crown Office or you personally refused to engage with this query, which bears a public interest too great to ignore."

The email below was sent by the Firm's Editor to the Lord Advocate via a trusted intermediary on 7 August.

No reply has been received.

Hi Elish,

I hope you are well, and also that you received my best wishes on your birthday. I did request your colleagues pass them on, but I have had some difficulty with the Crown's communications process, as you may be aware.

Please excuse my asking [redacted] to relay this to you.  I have always enjoyed your company and our direct professional relations and social encounters, and you have always expressed your wish to engage with me directly, especially on positive aspects of the Crown's work. Most importantly you have always offered courtesy and both personal & professional respect to me. So I think it is appropriate that I try to reach you as directly as possible. There is an impasse between this publication and your office, and it is my intention to break it.

I interviewed both Lindsay Montgomery and Jamie Millar and discussed the whole issue of the Cadder/Salduz emergency guidelines, which concerned the three of you and the organisations you all represent. This will be featured in the next issue of the magazine. Professionalism demands that I include your perspective, if possible, or at least that of the Crown Office, and I am contacting you directly in an effort to facilitate it. I would prefer a brief meeting and interview, or a telephone briefing, but am happy to accommodate whatever mode suits you, ideally within 7 days to maximise the window before deadline, although this is not rigid, and flexibility is available should that timeframe not seem suitable.

I would also like to use this as a practical opportunity to demonstrate once again something which I have expressed at length elsewhere, which is my good faith and professional efforts to secure constructive engagement with the Crown Office and its personnel, something which has proved challenging, despite my dealing with those who are employed to exercise that very function.

I am sure you are aware that elements within Crown Office have blacklisted the Firm (with the disingenuous disclaimer that "any other credible representative" of the Firm may receive the courtesy of engagement. Divide et impera, like all ultimatums, must be rejected on principle) on the unsustainable argument that my behaviour has been in some manner worthy to warrant this. I have never resolved to accept this as either a credible nor an acceptable position, and we both know that it cannot stand. I have had no specific need to challenge its practical application, until now, which is why I come to you directly, and request that we do our jobs together, as we must, and rise above the posturing of others. It is not my intention to turn the actings of your deputies into sport or political fodder. I want to do my job, and I ask you to help me, by doing yours insofar as it relates to mine. This is not only a professional and indeed personal request; it is my olive branch to you and your office. I believe the time for us both to get back to working together is now.

I know you to be afraid of nothing, and I do not believe you to be sufficiently petty that you would allow the actions of your colleagues to overcome your own professional judgement to engage with me in the best interests of justice, public duty, accountabilty and the wider interests of the Crown Office. Perhaps you'll prove me wrong, in which case i'll have greatly misjudged you.

It may also be worth my saying that my professional credibility has soared in certain quarters since I earned the disapproval of the Crown, and if I may offer my opinion, this status reflects poorly on the Crown. I take no pleasure from either of these outcomes, and would simply like to see workable communication facilitated. I hope that you do too. I can see no benefit to the Crown or the Law Officers from a perception that they suppress or avoid legitimate media scrutiny. The Firm does not have a docile reputation. In my view, engaging with it brings benefit to you.

Either way, I look forward to hearing from you. You may consider it appropriate to pass this to your communications staff, given that my enquiry is firmly professional and media related, in which case, i'll simply ask you to invite them to engage with me in accordance with my professional aims, which have not at any point changed, despite what I would consider ample justification. Divide et impera is not my approach, and I offer the same professionalism to all should they choose to accept it. I merely approach you directly to minimise the chances of deflection.

I do not want to report that the Crown Office or you personally refused to engage with this query, which bears a public interest too great to ignore, in my view. I am prepared to put the posturing of your colleagues to one side and firmly behind us, and simply move on. I am optimistic that you will agree this represents the best and simplest solution. I hope you don't mind if I take this opportunity to remind you that I have not at any time disengaged from my professional responsibilities, nor lost sight of the requirements of my work.

In due course, The Firm will be obliged to report fully on the Cadder decision, and I hope in the interests of your fellow professionals -the Firm's readers- who stand behind me and rely on me to inform on in some depth about these matters, that you and I can discuss that decision as need arises too.

I do look forward to hearing from you.

Steven


ps I was surprised that no other media picked up on your revelation to BBC radio that you had survived the Polmont rail tragedy. On a personal note, I can only imagine how that experience impacted upon you (and of course all those affected). I suspect in many ways it has fundamentally defined you and your life subsequently, as all extreme experiences surely do. I thought it took some courage to mention it as you did.