Frank Mulholland, 65, who was head of Scotland’s prosecution service between 2011 and 2016 and chaired a diversity unit, gave evidence to the inquiry on Thursday.
The former lord advocate who oversaw the initial probe into the death of Sheku Bayoh has told an inquiry he knew immediately that “issues of racial motivation were going to be front and centre of the investigation”.
Mr Mulholland, 65, who was head of Scotland’s prosecution service between 2011 and 2016 and chaired a diversity unit, gave evidence to the inquiry on Thursday.He used the comparison of the racist murder of teenager Mr Lawrence in London in 1993. Mr Mulholland said he had worked on a “broad umbrella of hate crime”, including the Glasgow murder of Mark Scott, and had met the families of Lockerbie victims during his time as lord advocate.
He said he had felt compelled to publicly issue a statement “calling for restraint and to allow the Crown Office and Pirc to get on with their jobs”, in October 2015. “What they wanted was answers – what happened, why it happened, whether anyone was responsible, whether anyone could have prevented the death of a partner, son, and it seemed to me that was hugely important.
“As lord advocate you are leader of the prosecution service, it seemed to me that what I was required to do was to step up to the plate. I needed to know about the case, if additional resources were required it’s my job to get the money for it.” Mr Bayoh’s cause of death was listed as MDMA, Alpha-PVP and restraint, but Mr Mulholland said he would have wanted the pathologist to be spoken to in a bid to examine this further.
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