I think I'll bookmark this thread for future reference when a man is found not guilty of an accusation of a sexual offence. I've never seen such overwhelming acceptance that "not guilty" wipes the slate clean. The usual mantra is "not guilty doesn’t mean not innocent"
Such hypocrisy.
I've already addressed the issue in my last comment, but I'll answer again:
This case does not compare to other sexual assault cases, because the charges in this case were made up. The slate isn't wiped clean because of the verdict. There was no slate.
The media have hated Salmond with unrelenting fervour since forever. If Salmond was a "sex pest" as you keep claiming, they would have published allegations at the height of the independence referendum campaign. That is, after all, the time period the allegations made against him relate to. They needed ammunition against him then and would have used this without hesitation.
Furthermore, if he was a "sex pest", there would have been a slew of further claims against him since the trial, at the very least in the papers who so enjoyed their 8-page spreads when the charges were leaked to the press. Because that is what normally happens in these cases - no shortage of victims, some of whom decide to come forward only after a trial.
That hasn't happened, because whatever his faults, he is not a sexual predator. Salmond was under extreme and constant scrutiny. There would have been heaps of evidence of misconduct if he was.
He might be a bully, I have no idea, but that wasn't the charge in criminal court. (I've never liked the man, but that is neither here nor there. I haven't met him, so my view of him has been shaped very much by the same media that despises him so much.)
I think it might be useful to take independence out of the equation for a moment and look at what is alleged to have happened: the highest levels of our government pressuring police to charge an innocent man. Demanding the police tell them what evidence they need to charge him so they can provide it. (This is now a matter of public record that this happened. Read the evidence supplied to the inquiries.)
And our FM, a woman much admired across the world, as a progressive, feminist, upstanding politician, a woman I once admired, allegedly at the very top of those vile machinations.
That's extremely concerning to me. I can't think of a political scandal in recent UK history that compares to this. And now it's being covered up, the inquiry hobbled, and stacked with members loyal to the FM. Witnesses threatened with prosecution if they give their full evidence to the inquiry. By the Crown Office, allegedly up to their necks in this, too.
Just think about this. Please.