LORD Watson of Invergowrie, the Labour peer, appeared in court yesterday to face two charges of wilful fire-raising.
The 55-year-old MSP for Glasgow Cathcart made no plea or declaration at the brief hearing in private before Sheriff Nigel Morrison, QC, at Edinburgh Sheriff Court.
The charges follow an alleged fire-raising incident at the city's Prestonfield House Hotel in the early hours of November 12 after The Herald Scottish Politician of the Year Awards dinner.
Lord Watson arrived at the sheriff court in a taxi with Clare, his wife, and Daniel Scullion, the lawyer who represented him at the court appearance, at 11.50am. He made no comment to waiting media. The peer left the building 25 minutes later, again saying nothing as he climbed into a taxi.
A spokesman for the Crown Office, which is responsible for prosecutions in Scotland, said later: ''Mike Goodall Watson, 55 years, appeared on petition on two charges of wilful fire-raising at Edinburgh Sheriff Court today.
''He made no plea or declaration and was committed for further examination and released on bail.'' No details of the charges were given.
Lord Watson was a member of the House of Commons from 1989 to 1997, but lost
his seat through boundary changes.
Despite being awarded a peerage after leaving Westminster, he was keen to return to elected politics and won the Glasgow Cathcart seat in the Scottish Parliament elections for Labour in 1999 and held it with a majority of 5000 in 2003.
As a political associate of Jack McConnell, the first minister, the MSP became minister for tourism, sport and culture three years ago, but was re-shuffled out of that job in May last year. He is a director of Dundee United FC.
At Holyrood, he made a name for himself by putting forward a member's bill to abolish fox-hunting.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article