LADY DORRIAN, who is expected to preside over the Salmond prosecution, is the first woman in 692 years to be appointed Lord Justice Clerk, as Scotland’s second most senior judge. The first Lord Justice Clerk – William de Camera – was appointed to the post in 1324.

Lady Dorrian was born Leeona Dorrian in June 1957 in Edinburgh. She attended Cranley Girls’ School in the city and studied for a law degree at Aberdeen University before being admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in 1981.

She became Queen’s Counsel in 1994 and was appointed as a full-time high court judge in 2005 after Mr Salmond’s predecessor as First Minister Jack McConnell recommended her to the Queen.

Lady Dorrian is currently leading a review of how courts deal with cases relating to serious sexual offences, including rape, which is due to report early next year. She is also chair of the sentencing council which has been criticised for delays in producing guidelines on sentencing for sexual assaults.

She was one of the three appeal judges who recently cut the punishment part of Aaron Campbell’s sentence by three years to 24 years from 27, after the 17-year-old was convicted of abducting, raping and murdering Alesha MacPhail in March 2019 at the High Court in Glasgow.

Lead responsibility for presenting the case against Mr Salmond will be taken by Alex Prentice QC. He currently holds the position of Home Advocate Depute – the most senior court room prosecutor – within the Crown Office.

He qualified as a solicitor in 1983. He became a solicitor advocate – the term for a solicitor who is able to practice in the High Court – in 1994.

He has prosecuted a number of high profile cases. including the 2010 prosecution of former MSP Tommy Sheridan in the case which saw him convicted of perjury. In 2012, he secured convictions against David Gilroy, who murdered his former lover Suzanne Pilley in Edinburgh May 2010, in an unusual case where there was no forensic evidence linking Mr Gilroy to the crime and no definitive proof the crime had taken place: Ms Pilley’s body has never been found to this day.

Mr Prentice also secured the 2012 conviction in the high profile case of Nat Fraser, who murdered his wife Arlene in April 1998.

Mr Salmond’s defence team is headed by Gordon Jackson QC. As Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, Mr Jackson is leader of the Scottish Bar, but he is also known to many for his relatively short-lived career in politics. He was elected to the Scottish Parliament as Labour MSP for Glasgow Govan in 1999, until his defeat by Nicola Sturgeon in 2007.

Educated at Ardrossan Academy, he studied law at the University of St Andrews in Fife and became an advocate in 1979 before taking silk as a QC in 1990. He is one of the most sought after criminal law advocates in Scotland and has continually topped the charts for being the top legal aid earner. In 2012, Mr Jackson made more than £400,000 in legal aid fees.

Prominent cases include that of a dog called Woofie, a cross collie dog who faced being put to sleep in 1998 for allegedly biting a postman. Mr Jackson managed to maintain a reprieve for the dog. Famously, French actress Brigette Bardot flew into Scotland to lend her support to him during a hearing at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh.

Junior counsel in the Salmond defence team is Shelagh McCall QC. She became an advocate in 2000 before taking silk in 2015. She formerly acted as appeals counsel for the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and she was appointed chair of the law reform and human rights organisation JUSTICE Scotland in 2017.

Ms McCall recently acted for Thomas Haining, who was jailed for eight years in October 2019 for shaking his three-week-old child Mikayla to death. Although Haining originally faced a murder charge, the Crown agreed to accepted a guilty plea of guilty to a lesser charge of culpable homicide.