Exclusive:Police drop probe into senior civil servant's evidence to Salmond inquiry

James Hynd was the Scottish government's head of cabinet, parliament and governance when he gave evidence to the Holyrood probe in 2020.

The news he was under police investigation previously emerged during a Court of Session hearing in August 2024.

Mr Salmond’s lawyer Gordon Dangerfield told the court detectives were looking into claims that a “very, very senior civil servant - Mr James Hynd - gave a false statement on oath at the inquiry”.

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Mr Hynd was responsible for drafting the government’s policy on the handling of complaints involving former and current ministers, under which Mr Salmond was initially investigated for alleged sexual harassment.

The former first minister was awarded £500,000 in legal costs in 2019 after a judge said the handling of the government’s investigation had been “unlawful" and "tainted with apparent bias".

He was later cleared of multiple sexual misconduct allegations following a trial at the High Court in Edinburgh in 2020.

At the time of his death, Mr Salmond was pursuing a fresh legal action against the Scottish government, seeking "significant damages" and compensation for loss of earnings. This case has now been taken on by Paul McManus, the drummer of Scottish rock band Gun.

A Police Scotland spokesperson said: “Following a complaint in relation to evidence provided to a Scottish Parliament committee, an investigation was carried out and no further action is being taken.”

The Holyrood inquiry, which was carried out by a special committee of MSPs, was set up to examine the government’s mishandling of harassment complaints made against Mr Salmond.

Mr Hynd told MSPs it was his decision to include former ministers within the scope of the harassment policy.

“Those concerns were generated by, frankly, the rather unsavoury headlines which were emanating from Westminster and from Whitehall about alleged behaviour down there,” he said.

“Given my ministerial code responsibilities, I was already thinking about if we had the same kind of allegations surfacing in Scotland, what would we do here?”