Flashback to 1988: How Shropshire pub plot nearly led to MP's prosecution
1988. One rule for us, another rule for them. Sound familiar?
It was something which underpinned a remarkable private prosecution brought in 1988 by a Shropshire solicitor against a maverick MP.
And it had all been dreamt up in a Telford pub.
Labour's Ron Brown, the MP for Edinburgh Leith, had been so worked up during a debate in the House of Commons that he grabbed the ceremonial mace, one of those forbidden actions as it is the symbol of the sovereign's authority, and went on to drop it – he denied he had thrown it down – and damage it.
As a result he was suspended from the chamber on full pay for a month.
John McMillan, a Glaswegian, and a Telford solicitor who appeared day in and day out defending people at Shropshire courts, was discussing what Brown had done with colleagues at their favourite watering hole, the Malt Shovel in Leegomery.
It was there that the idea began to form of bringing a private prosecution.
How could it be right, he felt, when his clients who committed criminal damage would at least be hit with a fine, that an MP who damaged the historic ceremonial mace did not get a fine or punishment but was instead given a paid holiday?
So Mr McMillan went to Telford Magistrates Court asking the magistrates to sign the summons, telling them that if the incident had involved anyone other than an MP, they would have been brought before the court.
