Alistair Duff

• Alistair Duff was admitted as a solicitor in 1977 and worked as a procurator fiscal between 1977 and 1981
• He was in private practice as a solicitor specialising in criminal defence between 1981 and 2004
• He qualified as a solicitor-advocate with criminal rights of audience in 1993 and conducted cases before the High Court of Justiciary
• He was engaged to advise the two Libyan nationals accused in the Lockerbie case in 1993 and subsequently represented Abdelbaset al-Megrahi at the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial in the Netherlands between 1999 and 2002.^[3] An Al-Jazeera documentary shows court video of Duff in consultation with al-Megrahi at Camp Zeist.
• He was appointed Resident Sheriff in the Sheriff Court of Dundee in 2004
• In 2007 he was appointed to the Scottish Prisons Commission^[4] alongside Henry McLeish, Lesley Riddoch, Dr Karin Dotter-Schiller, Geraldine Gammell, Richard Jeffrey and Chief Constable David Strang
• He became involved in judicial training in 2011 and was appointed Director of the Judicial Institute for Scotland in 2014.^[5] The Institute provides education and training for Scottish judges in all aspects of Scots Law.^{[6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]} In his role of Director he attended many high level conferences concerning judicial reform in Scotland and Europe.^{[15][16][17][18]}
• In 2016 he gave a presentation to National Youth Justice Conference organised by the Children and Young Peoples Centre for Justice^[19][20][21]
• In 2019 he was appointed to a tribunal alongside Lord Bracadale and others to look into the case of Aberdeen Sheriff Jack Brown concerning alleged sexual misconduct.^[22] The tribunal's findings were later overturned.^[23]
• He has formerly been a member of the following bodies: -
  • Law Society of Scotland Council ^[24]
  • Scottish Sentencing Council
  • McInnes Committee on Summary Justice Reform ^[25][26][27]

In December 2021 he abruptly retired from the Judicial Institute for Scotland following his arrest in October 2021.

He was arrested and charged in December 2021 following a complaint made in October 2021 and appeared in court on 6 November 2023, charged with 'sexually aggravated breach of the peace'. The offence consisted of being overheard, whilst watching a video, making sexual and a racial remark to another man during the break in an online training session for justices of the peace, two of whom reported him to the police.^[28] He was fined £1275 .^[29][30][31]

Concerns about the apparent secrecy surrounding the case were expressed in various quarters,^[32] including Member of Scottish Parliament Russell Findlay who submitted two written questions to the Scottish Parliament asking for the publication of ministerial correspondence relating to Duff's arrest and resignation ^[33] and legal advice received in ruling against the MSP, all of which were rejected. Some information, excluding court records and personal information, was released on 9 November 2022.^[34]

On 22 November 2022, following further police investigations, Duff was arrested and charged with a further offence.^[35] Further information following a freedom of information request was withheld by Police Scotland in May 2024 on the basis that investigations were on-going.^[36]