Willie McRae (18 May 1923 – 7 April 1985) was a Scottish lawyer, naval officer, politician and anti-nuclear campaigner. In the Second World War he served in the British Army and then the Royal Indian Navy. He supported the Indian independence movement and for much of his life was active in the Scottish National Party.
On 5 April 1985 McRae left Glasgow at 18:30 to drive to spend the weekend at his cottage at Ardelve in Ross-shire. He was not seen again until the next morning around 10:00, when two Australian tourists saw his maroon Volvo saloon car on a moor a short distance from the junction of the A887 and A87 in Glenmoriston, Inverness-shire. The car was straddling a burn (stream) about 90 feet from the road. The tourists flagged down the next car to pass, whose driver turned out to be a doctor, Dorothy Messer, with her fiancé and David Coutts, an SNP Dundee councillor who actually knew McRae, who was found in the car. His hands were "folded on his lap", his head was "slumped on his right shoulder", and there was a "considerable amount of blood on his temple". He was not wearing a seat belt.
Dr. Messer examined McRae and found that he was still alive and breathing. She noted that one of his pupils was dilated, indicating the possibility of brain damage, and estimated that he had been in that state for 10 hours. He was removed by ambulance to Raigmore Hospital, Inverness, accompanied by Dr Messer, then transferred on to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary where, six hours after he had been found, a nurse washing his head discovered the entry wound of a gunshot. An X-ray confirmed that McRae had been shot in the head and the bullet was lodged in his head. His brain was severely damaged and his vital functions very weak. McRae's life-support machine was switched off the next day, the 7th April.
The investigation was headed by Chief Superintendent Andrew Lister of Northern Constabulary CID. Despite no weapon having yet been found, McRae's car was moved at 12:00 on 7 April. It later transpired that the police had kept no record of the precise location where the car had been found, and the position stated by them was later found to be 1 mile in error, and was corrected by a witness who had been present at the scene.
A weapon was found the next day, in the stream over which the car had been discovered, 60 feet away from the vehicle. It was a Smith & Wesson .22 calibre revolver containing two spent cartridges and five remaining rounds.
It was ruled at the time by authorities that McRae's death was undetermined, suicide being a possibility. However, the distance from McRae's car to the place where the gun was found and the lack of fingerprints on it rendered risible the whole concept that he might have shot himself in the head then walked 60 feet along the stream , wiped clean the gun, thrown it away, then walked back to the car to sit down in the driving seat and wait to be found.
At the time of his death, McRae had been working to counter plans to dump nuclear waste from the Dounreay Nuclear Power Development Establishment into the sea. Because his house had been burgled on repeated occasions prior to his death, he used to carry a copy of the documents relating to his Dounreay work with him at all times. They were not found following his death, and the sole other copy which was kept in his office was stolen when it was burgled, no other items being taken.
In 1991 Channel 4 broadcast a "Scottish Eye" documentary investigating the mysterious circumstances of McRae's death. It found evidence to suggest that McRae had been under surveillance by UK intelligence services and that his death had likely involved foul play.
Neither McRae's medical reports nor the post-mortem data have been released to the public and there was no fatal accident inquiry. The President of the SNP, Winnie Ewing, a lawyer to trade, was directed by the SNP's National Executive Committee to conduct an internal investigation for the party to come to a conclusion as to whether Ewing "was satisfied or dissatisfied with the official version that he committed suicide". Having been refused access to police records of the investigation and refused private, confidential meetings with the Lord Advocate and the Procurator Fiscal, Ewing said that she came "up against a brick wall". Ewing reported to the SNP NEC that she was not satisfied with the official account of suicide: "I do not know what happened, but I think it is important that the truth emerges, despite the time that has passed. Why the State refuses to let the truth be known is a pertinent question."
In 2005 Winnie Ewing's son Fergus, by then an MSP, requested a meeting with Elish Angiolini, Solicitor General for Scotland, to discuss allegations that have persisted that McRae was under surveillance at the time of his death. The request was rebuffed, with Angiolini claiming that he had not been under surveillance and that she was satisfied that a thorough investigation into the case had been carried out.
In July 2006 a retired police officer, Iain Fraser, who was working as a private investigator at the time of McRae's death, claimed that he had been anonymously employed to keep McRae under surveillance only weeks before he died. In November 2006 an episode of the Scottish Television show Unsolved examined the circumstances of McRae's death.
In November 2010 John Finnie, then SNP group leader on Highland Council and a former police officer, wrote to the Lord Advocate urging her to reinvestigate McRae's death and release any details so far withheld. Finnie's request was prompted by the release the previous month of further details concerning the death of David Kelly. In January 2011 the Crown Office requested the files on the case from Northern Constabulary.
Also in November 2010 Donald Morrison, a former Strathclyde Police officer, alleged that McRae had been "under surveillance" by both Special Branch and MI5. Morrison had collaborated with former colleague Iain Fraser to discover more about McRae's death. Morrison called for an enquiry into McRae's death and promised that he would give it a sworn affidavit that MI5 was involved.
In July 2014 two unconnected plays by George Gunn and Andy Paterson about McRae's life and death, both coincidentally titled 3,000 Trees, were staged at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. One of the plays explored his anti-nuclear campaigning, links with nationalist radicals and allegations that Special Branch and MI5 were surveilling him.
In November 2014 a Scottish Sunday Express front-page article alleged that McRae had uncovered evidence of the alleged paedophile ring in Westminster during the 1980s. The article suggested he may have been murdered and that the evidence he possessed was stolen at the time of his death.
In April 2015 there was a campaign to have a Fatal Accident Inquiry (FAI) on McRae's death. It attracted 6,500 signatures in 5 days.
The petition eventually collected over 13,000 signatures and was handed in, in June 2015. The Crown Office rejected the proposal to hold a Fatal Accident Inquiry.
On the Easter weekend of April 2015, the 30th anniversary of McRae's death, Scotland on Sunday ran a story claiming that McRae's Volvo was moved back to the crash site by Northern Constabulary in an attempt to hide that the car had been moved before the bullet had been found – accounting for the discrepancies relating to the gun's distance from the car.
On the same day, one of the journalists involved started crowdfunding for a book on the case titled '30 Years of Silence'.
Following the rejection of the petition for a Fatal Accident Inquiry by the Crown Office, a "Justice For Willie" Campaign group was set up by Mark MacNicol. The campaign decided to launch their own investigation since no official inquiry was forthcoming. They hired two private investigators to re-interview original witnesses from the time of Willie McRae's death. The results were published in November 2016, and the campaign were unable to find any new evidence to undermine the official suicide verdict.
In October 2018, fresh doubt on the official verdict was raised again by a nurse who claims to have treated Willie McRae at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. Katharine Mcgonigal disputed that the bullet wound was to the right temple, as the post-mortem claimed, and said it was instead to the back of the neck.
Difficult to shoot yourself in the back of the neck.
Friday 7 April 2023
7th April
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7 comments:
The case was not known to me. But it doesn't surprise me. It demonstrates beyond any doubt that so-called "western democracies" are a sham, when these sort of acts cannot be held accountable to the elected Government. And this will not be an isolated case.
These are the very same "western democracies" that have, in my lifetime, destroyed many countries, overthrown elected Governments, and killed tens of millions of people. Anyone in doubt, do a bit of research on the US's National Endowment for Democracy, and which countries it is fomenting unrest and regime change and armed insurrection.
So, one unfortunate Scotsman trying to expose state crime is bad, but tens of millions dead since WW2 in the name of "democracy" is the bigger crime. EG: right now the US and its "allies" are sanctioning relief aid to Syria following the earthquakes.
the shocking death of willie mcrae should of course have been investigated long ago, however we now have a whole stack of further uninvestigated deaths - this time caused by the various 'covid'-vaccinations and lockdowns.
according to bbc-news, one vaccine-induced death, which has in fact been investigated by the coroner, is that of 44-year-old bbc-presenter - and mother of one - lisa shaw, who "in may 2021 a week after her first jab"..."died due to complications from the astrazeneca covid-19 vaccine", and whose husband, gareth eve, "says taking legal action is his only option".
the bbc-article in question - entitled lisa shaw death: legal action 'only option' for husband - describes gareth eve's quest for justice as follows:
gareth eve...said "it's not in my make-up to turn around and say i want to sue somebody but for almost two years we've tried to engage with the government and tried to engage with mps since lisa died and not one of them has reached out or engaged with us at all."
"any engagement is fleeting at best so that's the reason that we're left with no alternative - if the government or astrazeneca don't want to engage with us then what else are we supposed to do?"
he said all he wanted was "some sort of acknowledgement or recognition that these deaths have occurred".
mr eve added: "we're not crackpots or conspiracy theorists, we're husbands and wives and family members who have lost somebody - that's all it is."
"whatever the money it's not going to bring my son's mam back."
lawyers for the group sent the company pre-action protocol letters in november, the first step in a legal claim on behalf of about 75 claimants - some of whom have lost relatives and some who survived with injuries.
in august 2021, newcastle coroner karen dilks said ms shaw had died from a very rare "vaccine-induced thrombotic thrombocytopenia", a condition which leads to swelling and bleeding of the brain.
mr eve said: "these things have happened to too many people and we're made to feel like it's a dirty secret, that we're talking about something we shouldn't be talking about."
"it's established it's been caused by astrazeneca's covid vaccination - it's not about covid, it's not about how many lives the covid vaccination has saved, it's about what this vaccination has done to lisa and other families and not about how successful it was or whether somebody is anti-vax."
much like the vietnam war veterans of 1970s america, the victims of vaccine-induced injury and death today are being systematically shunned by their own government.
at last we have the definitive article for which we have all been desperately waiting - and it is written by a professor who is clearly appalled by the inundation of vaccine-injury-victims which is currently destroying our nhs.
the express newspaper reports:
covid vaccine booster now does more harm than good, says prof angus dalgleish
"professor angus dalgleish is professor of oncology at st georges hospital medical school london. he is renowned for his ground-breaking research into hiv/aids. his conclusions on the covid virus confound the government line. we invite you to make up your own mind."
well, well...
not only does professor dalgleish reveal that the various 'covid'-vaccinations can prove extremely harmful - in fact more harmful to the general population than the 'covid'-virus itself - but he also categorically confirms the 'covid'-virus to be no more deadly than seasonal flu, and states the lockdowns to have been responsible for the 'covid'-"carnage".
as arthur daley might say, "it's all comin' on top" for the four genocidal governments of the uk.
i predict that vaccine-induced injury and death will become the predominate issue at the next general election, and that failure to address this scandal will ensure electoral defeat, yet which party dares grasp the 'covid'-nettle?
Well, they can't, can they, mr ultrapox? The heads of state have all gained political capital from telling us how well they managed the covid crisis. Can't back down on that now.
The Willie Mcrae business shocks me, mr mike - a law-abiding citizen of the United Kingdom, a politician, hounded by the security forces of his own country up until his death. Not as if he was a member of the torturable classes, nor a terrorist. And then a decades-long cover-up. Anyone would think we are living in a totalitarian state, instead of the flower of Western Democracy.
no, mrs ishmael: we're treading firmly in “let them inject covid” territory, however the addiction of our neo-liberally cosseted leaders to performing their pathetic face-saving charade must, i reckon, preclude any possibility of our parliament progressing to the high pantomime of a cathartic tumbril-moment upon the whimsical flagstones of whitehall; it's impossible that, having recklessly shot so many of their fellow countrymen, these entrenched establishment-snipers cannot chivalrously lower their rifles...
and in fact, with the cat now well-and-truly tearing its way out of the bag, these brass-necked ideologues in westminster will simply have to u-turn in order to maintain political power.
the worm has already turned in germany, where much to the chagrin of the 'covid'-kommandants amongst his coalition-colleagues, the chief vaccine-and-lockdown nazi has experienced a 'covid'-conversion on the autobahn to götterdämmerung - and has been duly forced, by the ambitious, but injury-conscious opposition, to change his cataclysmic 'covid'-tune, or else face the knight-music.
lessons will be learned – namely that those who fly too close to the war-mongering washington-establishment will be blinded to all empirical truth, and then get very badly burned.
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