This column and Tommy Sheridan, the self-styled saviour of the proletariat, haven't had a lot in common during our nine or so years of acquaintance. I may have laughed at his jokes and admired his turn of phrase from time to time but his working-class martyr act has never struck this observer as anything other than self-aggrandisement. | |  | Mr Healy [left] and Mrs Sheridan arrive for questioning with Mr Sheridan, who was charged with perjury in December
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However, as the weeks, months and now years grind on in the seemingly interminable inquiry following his court case victory against the News of the World, a fact has to be faced. It is this: by any standard or criteria of fair play, Mr Sheridan is getting a raw deal.
I say this not out of any belief in his innocence or guilt in relation to the charges of perjury which have now been levelled against both him and six others of his closest family, friends and associates. (And frankly, and I mean this, I have no idea on that score one way or the other.)
No, my concern is about the treatment meted out to him by the forces of law and order - and in particular the Crown Office and Lothians and Borders Police. And what's more, I'm not the only one who thinks so. Senior members of Scotland's legal fraternity, including some with the closest of links to the Scottish Executive, share my view that the Sheridan case is beginning to show this country's legal system in a very poor light. The latest instalment in this saga occurred at Gayfield Square police station in Edinburgh on Tuesday night when Mr Sheridan's wife, Gail, was charged with perjury after being interviewed for no less than six hours. Also charged on Tuesday, although he had to submit to only four hours of questioning, was Mrs Sheridan's 71-year-old father, Gus Healy. Previously, four other former political associates of Mr Sheridan, including Rosemary Bryrne, who was a Scottish Socialist Party MSP until May's Holyrood election, have also been charged with perjury. All of the charges relate to August 2006 when Mr Sheridan won £200,000 in damages after successfully suing the tabloid newspaper for defamation following lurid allegations it made about his private life. The newspaper appealed against the jury's verdict while Lothians and Borders Police launched an investigation after the trial judge, Lord Turnbull, said that someone in the case must have lied, which meant it was "almost inevitable" that a perjury inquiry would take place. Given the judge's comments, the police had to pursue the matter, but, as BBC Scotland solicitor Alistair Bonnington has said: "Lies are told every day and in every case in courts across Scotland. What happens about that? "Absolutely nothing. Just because this case involved a politician and a newspaper is not a reasonable basis at all to proceed with a perjury investigation. For Scotland, this sets a precedent." That, as they say, was then, since when there have been many more allegations made but no damages paid. Then, on Dec 16, Mr Sheridan was arrested and subsequently charged as he left the studios where he had been recording his radio talk show. At that stage, he was held for eight hours before being charged, while nine other officers - according to Mr Sheridan's estimate - searched his Glasgow home, 50 miles away, and occupied at the time only by his wife and two-and-a-half-year-old child. It was at about this time that I had begun to feel uneasy about Mr Sheridan's treatment. It is a well-known and honoured tradition of British police forces that they treat everyone equally when it comes to their arrest for suspected wrongdoing. But Mr Sheridan wasn't going anywhere and to pounce as he left his radio studio and then to subject his family to such a prolonged search seemed, to say the least, excessive. It's true that the police appear to have learned a bit of a lesson from their handling of that episode and Tuesday's events, concerning Mrs Sheridan and Mr Healy, were at least "by appointment". However, again, the duration of the questioning, especially 18 months after the event, and a whole month after her home had been, one assumes, thoroughly searched, seems disproportionate treatment for Mrs Sheridan. Not one to miss a trick, Mr Sheridan made the point that they can't have much crime to investigate in the Edinburgh area given that they've devoted so much time and resources to his case. Hyperbole or not, his words will strike a chord with many local residents, including this observer, given my recent and personal knowledge of the police station at Gayfield Square, having gone there to report another act of vandalism against my car - the second in three months. Whether the next move in this case is for Mr Sheridan and those others charged to face trial in a court of law is a matter for the Crown Office. Having been charged more than a month ago, the uninitiated might have supposed that a decision, at least in Mr Sheridan's case, might have been imminent. Not so, I learned last night, as police inquiries are still continuing. All of which adds up to yet more delay in a case that has already dragged on for far too long. Of course, perjury is a serious offence and, where it is suspected, it must be proceeded against with the utmost vigour. But Scottish justice is getting a bad name from the Sheridan case. It may not have the trappings of a show trial, but Mr Sheridan's treatment thus far is beginning to look like cruel and unnatural punishment. | 
