MSP has 'nothing to apologise for' over edited Rangers video

An SNP MSP has said he has “nothing to apologise for” after raising concerns over a video of Rangers players celebrating the club’s title win which police now say was “edited to include sectarian language”.

James Dornan, who represents Glasgow Cathcart at Holyrood, had previously said that he would apologise if the video, which featured players singing along to ‘Sweet Caroline’, was fake or if he had “misheard”.

However, following an investigation by Police Scotland into the video, officers said that no criminality had taken place.

A Freedom of Information (FOI) response from the police has now confirmed that the video, taken from inside Ibrox Stadium, was edited to include sectarian language.

They stated that specialists from Police Scotland’s Cyber Crime Unit had reviewed footage taken on a mobile device provided to them by a member of the group who recorded the players at the time, and confirmed that this footage was the original and had not been edited in any way, with no sectarian language heard.

James Dornan said he contacted police over the video.

Speaking to STV News, Dornan said that he had contacted the police following concerns that were raised when the edited video surfaced online.

“I contacted the police about this, which I’m fully entitled to do, I’ve got constituents asking me questions,” he said.

“They got back to me with a non-response. I then spoke to them on the phone and they told me that they would send me the response which is now public knowledge, after some persuasion, because their intention had been not to give that out.

“So, that’s why this is now in public domain.”

He continued: “As far as the apology goes, I’d thought about that and I thought, ‘I’ve done nothing wrong here’.

“What I’ve done is I’ve tried to find out if people have behaved inappropriately at the behest of my constituents.

“I’ve got nothing to apologise for, it wasn’t me that was fighting with the police and it wasn’t me who was wrecking the streets of Glasgow.”

Dornan said that there is “nothing to continue in terms of the video”, and said that he was doing his job.

He said: “I’m delighted, and as a matter of fact I said it in parliament in a speech I made just a couple of weeks ago, I’m delighted that the players were proven not to have said that.

“So, it’s not new this, I’ve already said in public that the police found the player not to have said that, that the video was edited, and that’s where I’m going to leave it,

“I’m not wanting to continue this because there’s nothing to continue in terms of the video, but I’ve got nothing to apologise for, I was doing my job.”

The SNP MSP also said that it was “completely unacceptable” that an individual had behaved in such a way as to edit the footage.

He said: “The idiot that did this is just causing trouble. He might think it’s funny, but what happens is that it feeds into narratives that people already have.

“So, I mean, I don’t think that there should be a police investigation into somebody thinking [with] the edit, they were funny or that.

“But, I do think that it was completely unacceptable that the guy behaved like this.”

Asked if any of the Rangers players were owed an apology, he said: “Yes, from the guy who made the video, but not from me.

“What I was doing was… I saw something which fooled many, many people, though everybody’s now saying that everybody knew it was a fake the minute they saw it, but fooled many, many people or I wouldn’t have received the contact I had asking me to get this investigated.

“So, I do think they’re owed an apology, but they’re owed an apology by the person that put those words into their mouths.”