Advocate and judge in Rangers tax case

Born: April 11, 1947;

Died: November 18, 2016

KENNETH Mure QC, who has died aged 69, was a highly respected lawyer qualified in both Scots and English Law, an advocate in Scotland and a Queen's Counsel for the UK.

Against his natural desire to say out of the limelight, he was thrust into the headlines in recent years as the judge in charge of a three-person tribunal in the "Big Tax Case" involving Rangers FC. A graduate and former law lecturer at the University of Glasgow, he was also very much a Hebridean, his mother being a Nisbet from the Isle of Tiree. Gaelic was therefore his mother tongue, although English became his first language, and he returned to a holiday home by the white sandy beach at Heanish, Tiree, throughout his life as a stalwart of the island community.

Mr Mure found himself in the headlines in Scotland and even UK-wide when he was appointed by Her Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service to chair, as a judge, a three-person tribunal to rule on what would become known as the "Big Tax Case" involving Rangers. The club had been involved in estimated £50million offshore tax avoidance schemes during the first decade of the 21st century, schemes which eventually dragged the club into financial disaster and liquidation.

The schemes, known as Employee Benefit Trusts (EBT), were used from 2001-2010 during Sir David Murray's ownership, with a total of 87 players and staff, including former Rangers captain Barry Ferguson, former manager Alex McLeish and Sir David Murray himself gaining millions of pounds tax-free, in addition to their on-paper wages.

Murray insisted his extra £6.3million from an EBT involved his own company, Murray International Holdings, rather than the football club itself. The Inland Revenue believed Rangers' EBT payments were illegal, while the club always refuted that and appealed.

Hence the setting up an independent tax tribunal in 2012, with Mr Mure QC in the chair alongside accountancy experts Scott Rae and Dr Heidi Poon. In November 2012, the tribunal voted 2-1 in favour of the Rangers appeal, with Mr Mure and Mr Rae backing the appeal "in principle" and Dr Poon voting against. The decision did not affect the current football club at Ibrox, which was reconstituted as a new company when the oldco Rangers was consigned to liquidation.

After that 2012 ruling, Mr Mure's job was done. He was not involved in the subsequent appeals and counter-appeals and the ball in the "Big Tax Case" is currently in the court of the highest judicial body in the UK, the Supreme Court. Given that they are tied up for a while with something they no doubt consider of greater urgency - their much-publicized Brexit-related case - a judgement on oldco Rangers is unlikely before next Spring.

Kenneth Nisbet Mure was born in Cumbernauld on April 11, 1947, to Robert Mure, also from Glasgow, and Kate Nisbet from Tiree. Robert's father James - Kenneth's grandfather - had worked for Glasgow City Corporation and lived first in Cathcart and later Shawlands. Kenneth's father was with the RAF in Tiree during the Second World War, based at the airfield at what was known on the island as The Reef. It was there that he met local lass Kate Nisbet from nearby Heanish, sister of well-known crofter and sheep farmer Rob Nisbet, and they married in 1944.

Moving to Glasgow after the war, Robert and Kate settled in Cumbernauld, where Robert worked as a typesetter for The Glasgow Herald, served as a councillor for Dunbartonshire and where Kenneth was born. Kenneth attended The High School of Glasgow near Anniesland Cross before going to the University of Glasgow, where he graduated Master of Arts (MA) and Bachelor of Laws (LLB), later becoming a lecturer specialising in tax law under the watchful eye of the somewhat eccentric Professor Flint, known in his Department of Law as "Old Flint."

Mr Mure was appointed Advocate for Scotland in 1975 and took silk as a QC for the UK in 1989. He became a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Taxation and his principal areas at the Bar included revenue law, partnership law, property law and trusts, and wills and succession.

Professor Donald Meek of Tiree, a fellow student of Mr Mure at the University of Glasgow, recalled: "I well remember the piles of documents tied in red ribbon which used to lie on the table of the Heanish house when Kenneth was on holiday in Tiree. The holiday was but a change of shop. Kenneth was a kenspeckle figure, with his fawn raincoat draped over his tall, slightly-stooped figure ... He remained loyal to his Heanish roots."

Another long-time friend, Murdoch Beaton, now a consultant with Low Beaton Richmond LLP of Renfield Street, told The Herald: "Kenneth was exceptionally courtly and polite, fairly reserved, and a complete workaholic. He adored his life as an advocate and a QC. I never felt that he did not treat the Rangers case in any way different from any other in which he was involved. He did not see it as a high profile matter at all, but rather than a question of the law of trusts on which he based his decision."

Nicole Pirie, a friend and neighbour of Mr Mure, added: "Kenneth was quiet, kind, unassuming, very clever, always with time to give advice to anyone who needed it. He was an excellent friend and neighbour. He loved model railways and collected trains and track with a view to setting this up following his proposed retirement in April of next year."

Mr Mure lived in Giffnock, East Renfrewshire, for the latter years of his life. He died peacefully at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow with no immediate family survivors. After a first funeral service at Linn Crematorium in Glasgow, he was interred at Kirkapol Cemetery on his beloved Tiree.

PHIL DAVISON