ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now then, imagine you are accused of sexual misconduct at work, you’re investigated and the inquiry finds there is not enough evidence to bring disciplinary charges against you but despite that your boss then says you’ve still got to apologise. Well that’s partly the position that supporters of Lib Dem peer Lord Rennard says he has found himself in. He denies the allegations yet Nick Clegg says he should say sorry. In a moment I’ll speak to the journalist, Miranda Green, she used to be Paddy’s Ashdown’s press secretary. Now though I’m joined by the Lib Dem peer and former reviewer of the government’s anti-terror laws, Lord Carlile. A very good morning to you Lord Carlile, I take it that you don’t think that Lord Rennard has got anything to apologise about.

LORD CARLILE: I think it would be quite wrong for Lord Rennard to apologise. Of course we are all wholly against sexual harassment but the fact is that Lord Rennard has consistently denied touching women in the sexually inappropriate way that has been alleged. The inquiry by the police after seven months decided that there was no case even to send to the Crown Prosecution Service and the police thereafter had the good sense to keep quiet about it after the announcement and Alistair Webster’s report found that there was an insufficient case on either the criminal or the civil burden of standard of proof for the case to go forward to a panel. So here we have a situation in which there has been found to be no case against Lord Rennard and yet he is being lined up against the wall by people who are trying to force him to apologise in a way no lawyer would advise and in which he should not apologise for all kinds of reasons.

DM: So you think Nick Clegg has got himself in a real tangle then over this?

LORD CARLILE: Yes, he has. He is trying to tell the Liberal Democrat peers what to do in circumstances where there is no procedure for them to do what he is suggesting. I was present when Lord Rennard told the Liberal Democrat chief whip in the Lords, Lord Newby, last Wednesday that he was returning to the whip. I was present when it was accepted, they shook hands and that was understood. Three or four days later we have a press release from the leader of the party suggesting some kind of completely arbitrary procedure which the party’s rules don’t provide for and which indeed no human resources department in any office up and down the country would regard as anything other than inappropriate and totally arbitrary.

DM: Just on that, Lord Rennard’s return them to the Lords under the Lib Dem whip, if Nick Clegg holds this line what resource does he have? What other action can Lord Rennard take?

LORD CARLILE: Well if he has the whip removed from him in appropriate circumstances then I have absolutely no doubt that Lord Rennard will be taking formal legal advice and the matter could unfortunately end up in the public law courts but nobody wants that to happen and I don’t begin to understand why Nick Clegg has intervened after a process which has been concluded in Lord Rennard’s favour and as a result the matter should be closed. Nick Clegg should have kept an entirely neutral position in this matter from beginning to end.

DM: Writing in the Mail on Sunday today you made some very, very, very strong comparisons with North Korean leaders and others. I mean do you really think he has acted on that level?

LORD CARLILE: Well I was using strong language to describe the arbitrariness of the process. In the modern world, in modern political parties, we have written procedures – let’s call them laws, because they are like laws – which are very similar to the laws that apply to the general public in their employment and elsewhere and we should respect those internal laws just as we as politicians insist on the public and other people’s employers respecting those laws. Putting it another way, as I do in the article, if this sort of thing happened to Nick Clegg’s constituents then Nick Clegg would be the first to express fury at what I’ve called the arbitrariness and the unfairness of the procedure that’s now proposed.

DM: Have you been able to look in detail at the evidence that was presented and bring your legal analysis to bear?

LORD CARLILE: Yes, oh yes, yes. I’ve seen all the evidence. Outrageously, neither I as Lord Rennard’s responsibility nor Lord Rennard as the individual concerned, has been given a copy of Alistair Webster’s report and that is extraordinary and legally unacceptable but I’ve seen all the evidence, indeed we provided most of the evidence. There were four statements provided for what we’ll call the prosecution, there were fifty statements selected from a larger number of available witnesses, presented to Mr Webster on behalf of Lord Rennard. Some of those were character statements but quite a number were strictly evidential, including some which related to the incidents complained of. It was a very weak case as presented to Mr Webster and Mr Webster, in my view, reached the only tenable conclusion on the evidence he had, namely no further action and that should be the end of the debate.

DM: Okay, Lord Carlile, thank you very much for that. I want to turn now to Miranda Green, who used to be Paddy Ashdown’s press secretary. Listening to that, Miranda Green, you just heard Lord Carlile, he is very, very frank about it, sentence first, verdict afterwards, that Lord Rennard has been put up against the wall.

MIRANDA GREEN: Well first of all he is quite wrong to say Alistair Webster said no further action, Alistair Webster said that Chris Rennard should apologise, which he is refusing to do so Alex Carlile, for whom I have a great deal of time, I think is really on dangerous territory with this because they are picking and choosing what they want to see in the QC’s statement. Really, the QC’s statement is very favourable to Lord Rennard in that it does allow him to go back to the Lib Dem whip in the Lords if he does what is demanded, which is an apology to the women concerned but they are digging themselves in on this. I do find it slightly ridiculous when Alex talks about the modern world, I must say, suggesting that the modern world would view his side of the argument with approval. What you are seeing across society is a whole swathe of cases in the BBC and elsewhere where it is becoming clear that sexual harassment of women in the workplace is not acceptable. Women are not going to put up with it anymore and it is sort of extraordinary for a small group of unelected peers to decide to welcome what they choose to interpret as an exoneration in the face of frankly vast amounts of public anger and that is what he’s up against. He’s up against public anger.

DM: I want to put that back to Lord Carlile, a small group of unelected peers. You were elected once of course, do you take on board any of that from Miranda Green?

LORD CARLILE: Well I have a great regard for Miranda Green and she has a lot of experience and she will know if she has read the party rules that Alistair Webster should not have made the comments that he made. Alistair Webster told me and Chris Rennard in turns, I made a contemporaneous note as he said it, that he made no findings of fact. He did not find that Chris Rennard, Lord Rennard, had touched any woman in the sexually inappropriate way alleged. He therefore should not have gone off on a tangent saying that Chris Rennard should apologise when there was not enough evidence to pursue the charge laid against him and just to finish, sorry, that is consistent with what the police said after a seven month investigation in which Lord Rennard when interviewed answered fully every single question that was put to him.

DM: Okay, I see you are saying he should have assessed the evidence. Miranda Green, we are running out of time, I just want to put this last point. It all looks very bad for the Liberal Democrats doesn’t it? The Liberal Democrats have handled this awfully, it just looks like they got a problem with women.

MIRANDA GREEN: It’s very damaging. I think part of the problem to be honest is this idea that it should be handled rather than confronted and that is what has left this legacy of it sprawling across time and it’s not even concluded now. The problem that Nick Clegg has is that the statement from Alistair Webster QC is inconclusive, it is on the one hand, on the other hand and neither side is satisfied and it’s left the party leader with a huge problem but it is time for him to be ruthless I think I’m afraid because he has to demonstrate that the Liberal Democrat party will confront these issues and not try to shuffle them under the carpet.

DM: But as Lord Carlile says, perhaps face legal action.

MIRANDA GREEN: Perhaps it is a very dangerous moment for the party and for the party leader but he has to stand firm I believe. I’m sorry, Alex, I believe it is a really important moment to show that the party lives in the same world as the rest of the population.

DM: Okay, well there we must end it. Miranda Green, thank you very much and our thanks once again to Lord Carlile.