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Former MSP Bill Walker to appeal convictions Former MSP Bill Walker loses appeal convictions
(35 minutes later)
Former MSP Bill Walker is attempting to have his conviction for domestic abuse offences against three former wives and a stepdaughter quashed. Ex-MSP Bill Walker has lost a bid to overturn his convictions for assaulting a woman during a catalogue of domestic abuse that earned him a jail sentence.
Walker was jailed for 12 months last September after being found guilty of 23 assaults and one breach of the peace which spanned decades.Walker was jailed for 12 months last September after being found guilty of 23 assaults and one breach of the peace which spanned decades.
His case will be heard by three judges at the Appeal Court in Edinburgh later. His case was heard by three judges at the Appeal Court in Edinburgh.
The 72-year-old was released from Dumfries Prison last month after serving six months of his sentence.The 72-year-old was released from Dumfries Prison last month after serving six months of his sentence.
Sheriff Kathrine Mackie, who heard the two-week trial at Edinburgh Sheriff Court last year, found Walker guilty of assaulting his first wife, Maureen Traquair, on three separate occasions in the 1960s and 1980s. Walker was jailed after he was found guilty of attacking three former wives, Maureen Traquair, Anne Gruber and Diana Walker and a teenage step-daughter.
On one occasion he punched her in the face, giving her a black eye two weeks before they married in January 1967. Punched and slapped
Air rifle The former SNP MSP originally sought to launch an appeal on a number of grounds, but only one was allowed to go through to appeal judges.
He was convicted of assaulting his second wife, Anne Gruber, 15 times between 1978 and 1984. It related to two charges of assault against Ms Traquair, 66, who was punched and slapped, but this was rejected by the Lord Justice Clerk, Lord Carloway, sitting with Lady Dorrian and Lord Bracadale at the Justiciary Appeal Court in Edinburgh.
On various occasions Mrs Gruber was punched, slapped, kicked and pushed to the ground. Defence solicitor advocate John Keenan argued the first two assault charges relating to Walker's first wife were separated from the other offences he was found guilty of by a gap of about eight years, between the end of 1969 and the start of 1978.
He spat on her face, threw household items at her, threatened to pour hot coffee over her and pulled her hair. Mr Keenan said the question was whether in those circumstances the doctrine of mutual corroboration, with the evidence of one victim providing support for others, could be applied.
He also breached the peace by leaping into Mrs Gruber's home brandishing an air rifle. Lady Dorrian said Ms Traquair, Walker's first wife, had spoken of violence towards her before, during and after the marriage. A later charge concerned an incident during a reconciliation.
Walker, of Alloa in Clackmannanshire, was also found guilty of assaulting and injuring Mrs Gruber's 16-year-old daughter, Anne Louise Paterson, by repeatedly striking her on the head with a saucepan in 1978. The judge said they were of the view that it was "entirely artificial to seek to compartmentalise" her evidence on the earlier charges when she spoke of a course of conduct towards her at times when there was a relationship.
The former politician was also found guilty of four assaults on his third wife, Diana Walker, three of which involved slapping or punching her on the face. The attacks happened between June 1988 and January 1995. Walker, from Alloa, in Clackmannanshire, who sat as an MSP for Dunfermline before resigning in the wake of his trial at Edinburgh Sheriff Court last year, was not at court to hear his appeal being rejected.
Walker's crimes were committed at addresses in Edinburgh, Stirling, Midlothian and Alloa between 1967 and 1995.
The former SNP MSP, who was suspended and later expelled from the party after the allegations surfaced in March 2012, denied all the charges.
He claimed he was the victim of "smearing" and that his ex-wives colluded to accuse him of domestic violence.