Legal challenge to election of Alistair Carmichael fails

A legal bid to oust Orkney and Shetland MP Alistair Carmichael has failed after a ruling by judges in Edinburgh this morning.

Four constituents were backed by crowdfunding to launch the bid, after claims he misled voters over a memo leaked before General Election.

However judges ruled while Carmichael did lie in a bid to affect his return in election, because it wasn’t about "personal conduct" it did not breach electoral rules.

Judge Lady Paton said: "We are not persuaded that the false statement proved to have been made was in relation to anything other than the first respondent’s [Alistair Carmichael] awareness (or lack of awareness) of a political machination. Accordingly we are not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the words used by the first respondent amounted to a ‘false statement of fact in relation to personal character or conduct’.”

The memo, published in the Daily Telegraph, claimed SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon had told the French ambassador she favoured David Cameron as the next Prime Minister. Carmichael claimed at the time he had never heard about it, but it later emerged he had authorised the leak.

However judges ruled the ‘blatant lie’ was not “an express statement about his personal character or conduct”.

Carmichael told reporters the trial was “highly politically motivated”.