Jacko Unmasks Dirty Doc Ewan Crawford

It was only a matter of time. I was absolutely sure my Dirty Doc story would come round again, so to speak. Back in July I tried to get a couple of red tops to run with a story on a seedy Edinburgh GP who was using his medical practice to take "interesting" photographs of himself which he then posted on to internet swinger sites.
My first port of call had been the Daily Record and Edinburgh based hack Jack Mathieson was given the task of running the pervy practioner to ground. Unfortunately it was the same time as Max Mosley was taking the News of the Screws to task over invasion of privacy claims and the Record and subsequently two other titles bottled out of it for fear that, er, exposing a doctor who was misusing NHS premises was somehow not in the public interest. Strange, but there you go.
Anway, Jacko is nothing if not dogged and his patience and determination paid off as you can see with today's front page and page 9 Daily Record expose on Dr Ewan Crawford of Murrayfield Medical Centre.
Dr Crawford or "BigCchris" as he liked to call himself on sex websites likes to get things out in the open so congratulations to Jack for obliging with this full frontal assault which will surely end Crawford's career.
The Record's Edinburgh team are out on the lash tonight and I hope Jack has a Christmas drink on me.

Edinburgh Rocks As New Gallery breezes In To Jenners

Still looking for that elusive but exclusive Christmas present for your loved one? (shameless client plug alert) How about a signed Bob Dylan print from his recently launched Drawn Blank series. Entrepreneur and art gallery owner Bob Corsie has sourced some of these extremely hard to get works and they are on sale from today at his new gallery on the third floor of the grand old lady of Prince Street, Jenners.
If you pop in to breeze at Jenners make sure you tell Bob I sent you - it means I can bump up his fee.
Jenners Rocks With Opening of New Art Gallery

Cops Issue 'Slightly Unsettling' Press Release

'Tis the season of good will and all that but that's not going to stop me having a pop at my old mates in the Lothian and Borders Police press office. This is a couple of weeks old but it's too good to pass up, so here goes.

The famed media office issued a press release on December 1 appealing for witnesses to an alleged assault on two women walking home in the early hours of the morning in Duke Street, Leith.

The victims were verbally assaulted and two MONGS* threw some gravel at them before running off towards Leith Links.
A police spokesman said: “While neither woman was injured, this was an unpleasant incident which left them both slightly unsettled. We ask that anyone who was on Duke Street at the time of the incident and has any information that can help with our enquiries to contact police immediately."

Now, any person of any gender should be able to walk the streets safely without the threat of being accosted by the great unwashed and this was no doubt a frightening experience but let's go over that again - the women were not injured but "slightly unsettled".

And to help track down these ruthless criminals who have "slightly unsettled" the complainers a press officer has been tasked with compiling and distributing a press release to the nation's media.

Am I missing something? Oh yes, I forgot to mention the verbal abuse was "of a homophobic nature" according to the press release.

So, the next time an OAP's cat is abused by yobs or a gardener has his prized shrubs pulled up by neighbourhood neds can we expect a flurry of activity from the press office? Eh, probably not, unless the OAP (or cat) is gay or the gardener is of the uphill variety.

This PC-gone-mad police force will bend over backwards to mollycoddle every minority group but don't expect them to find a deid body lying in a garden or track down a rapist bogus taxi driver who then legs it to Africa.

*MONGS - police slang for Muirhouse or Niddrie Guffies

Crow Gets Beak In At Peter Tobin Trial

Only one story in town today and it's no surprise that the culmination of the Vicky Hamilton murder trial is hogging the news pages. Fortunately serial sex killers like Peter Tobin are still relatively rare and its right that when vermin like Tobin are brought to justice that the full horror of their twisted past is brought to light.

But watching the telly coverage last night and listening to the statement read by Vicky's sister, Lindsay Brown, on the steps of the High Court in Dundee I detected a distinct journalistic twist to her words.

My hunch proved correct when I got hold of my big pal and Scottish Daily Mail number two Alan Crow. Big Crow has worked hard this past year penning a book on the tragic murder and hunt for Vicky with her older sister Sharon Brown.

And he gave the hack pack covering the case a surprise by turning up at court on the last day of the trial - although I suspect many of the young team didn't have a clue who he was.

He claims he was followed about all day by two or three reporters and it brought back memories of when we were both covering a triple murder in Granton years ago (him for the Daily Record, me for the Edinburgh Evening News).

I will happily concede I muscled in on his action and a share of the collect pics of the victims by standing back from the pack and tailing him. He was astounded when I hit the same relative's door minutes after he was sitting down to raid the family album and of course at the time I would never reveal how I tracked down the relative and was so close behind him.

Anway, the book "Taken - The Agonising True Story of My Missing Sister" is expected to be published in January and I am told (by him) that it's a cracking read. I for one will be buying it, if only for the fact that Sharon Hamilton takes top billing on the front cover and Crow is relegated to inside - surely the first time he has ever been a support act on a byline?