ANDY Coulson will "vigorously contest" perjury allegations against him if they are ever brought to trial, a lawyer for David Cameron's former communications chief said yesterday.
Mr Coulson was charged by Strathclyde Police on Wednesday night over allegations he committed perjury during the trial of former MSP Tommy Sheridan.
A report is to be sent to the procurator-fiscal which will decide if the 44-year-old former News of the World editor will face court proceedings.
In a statement yesterday, his solicitor, Jo Rickards of law firm DLA Piper, said: "Andy Coulson will vigorously contest the perjury allegations made against him yesterday by Strathclyde Police, should they ever result in a trial."
Mr Coulson was detained at his London home on Wednesday morning and taken to Glasgow for six hours of questioning at Govan police station. Strathclyde Police then announced he had been arrested and charged with perjury. A Crown Office spokesman said there was no legal obligation for him to stay in Scotland, and he was free to return to his home in London.
The former journalist arrived back at his home in Dulwich, south-west London yesterday morning, after being released by police late on Wednesday evening. He declined to speak directly to reporters waiting outside.
Mr Coulson gave evidence at Sheridan's perjury trial at the High Court in Glasgow in December 2010, while he was employed by 10 Downing Street as director of communications.
Sheridan was ultimately jailed for three years in January last year after being found guilty of perjury during his 2006 defamation action against the News of the World. He had been awarded £200,000 in damages after winning the civil case but a jury found him guilty of lying about the tabloid's claims he was an adulterer who visited a swingers' club.
The former Scottish Socialist Party leader was convicted of five out of six allegations in a single charge of perjury relating to his evidence during the civil action at the Court of Session in Edinburgh.
Sheridan was released from jail in January this year after serving one year of his sentence and vowed to continue the fight to clear his name.
Coulson was arrested last year in relation to Scotland Yard's investigation into phone hacking at the news-paper. He was held in July on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications and corruption, and had his bail extended earlier this month. He resigned as editor in 2007 after the paper's former royal editor Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire were jailed for phone hacking.
David Cameron took him into government when he became Prime Minister in May 2010, making him his key media aide. But he resigned in January last year.
Operation Rubicon detectives have been looking at whether certain witnesses lied to the court during Sheridan's trial as part of a "full" investigation into phone hacking in Scotland.
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