A FUTURE inquiry into the scandal of the Crown Office’s malicious prosecution of the administrators of Rangers FC must be led by a judge from another jurisdiction, the Holyrood Parliament was told yesterday.

Bringing a motion for debate on the Crown Office’s actions, Conservative MSP Murdo Fraser claimed the final bill for the admitted malicious prosecutions could top £100 million.

Fraser said that the administrators, David Whitehouse and Paul Clark had been treated “as if they were terrorists” and “the experience that those innocent individuals suffered was horrific and, understandably, has had a major psychological impact on them both”.

He added: “What happened to Whitehouse and Clark is simply incredible.

“It is what we might expect to see in a third-world dictatorship, not in Scotland in the 21st century.”

The two men had been paid £24m in damages and expenses as The National revealed last month.

Fraser said: “That £24m might just be the tip of the iceberg.

“With another five cases still to be heard, the total sum may well reach £100m or perhaps even more.”

He called for “a full, independent and public inquiry conducted by a member of the judiciary from outside Scotland, from one of the other home nations”.

“That is the only way that the findings of any inquiry will have credibility in the eyes of the legal profession and the Scottish public,” he said.

The Lord Advocate James Wolffe QC replied that cases were still ongoing and more information would be forthcoming.

He added: “I agree with Mr Fraser that thereafter there should be a process of inquiry, that inquiry should be transparent andindependent, and that it should be led by a judge.”

Labour MSP Rhoda Grant said: “Let us be clear: services will need to be cut to provide that compensation.

“I cannot be alone in thinking that the level of compensation that has been determined, which is based on earnings, is obscene and calls into question the values of our society.”

John Finnie MSP, of the Scottish Greens, said: “The two pursuers were very high earning, and the damages reflect that. I wonder what would have happened if the individuals who were wronged in this way were unemployed labourers.

“What level of redress or financial compensation might they have received and would there be the same level of outrage in some quarters?

“I believe that we need to understand from the Lord Advocate whether the acknowledged shortcomings in the case applied in other perhaps less high-profile cases.”

Adam Tompkins, Conservative MSP, said: “When Frank Mulholland was Lord Advocate, he went out of his way to see to it that two innocent men were hounded by the state.

“The High Court in England ruled that the actions that were taken against those men were ‘an abuse of state power’.

“In any normal country, heads would roll. That man, Frank Mulholland, is now a Court of Session judge.”

He concluded: “It stinks, Presiding Officer, and do you know what it stinks of? It stinks of corruption.”