Scotsman's Rab McNeil On Cronin Watch

For one day only I am pleased to welcome a guest blogger. Step forward Rab McNeil, Scotsman columnist and sketch writer, who contacted me following my recent post on sex offender John Cronin. Rab was himself on Cronin Watch on several occasions and I thought his email comments should be shared. So, with his kind permission:

"I remember being at Haddington Sheriff Court for him on one occasion, too. Afterwards, it was like one of those normally unrealistic Hollywood scenes you see, with reporters all barking questions at the same time.

He didn't answer any. Not even: "What's your favourite colour, ya muppet?" Or: "What do you think of the Barnett Formula?" Imagine if he'd stopped in his wee fat tracks and answered the latter: "Now, that's an interesting question. You're from the Local Government Chronicle, right? I recognise the picture by-line. Well, when you consider the spend ratio per capita, you find the north of England doing very poorly, while the quotient for the south-east is really rather generous. However, apart from that, I have a very small knob. A bit like an IKEA pencil. Look, I'll show you."

I remember, too, being part of the mob that gathered at Edinburgh Airport when he returned from Ireland(?). Except, they must have sneaked him in or put him on an earlier flight. Anyway, to paraphrase Churchill on Atlee arriving somewhere: "The plane pulled up and nobody got out."
Well, no Cronins at any rate. The poor folk off the Dublin(?)flight looked bemused at the sight of the hack-pack. We said: "We were rather hoping there would be a pervert on the plane."
Passenger: "Well, I like dressing up as a moustachioed nun while my wife reads to me from the collected speeches of Joachim von Ribbentrop, if that's any good to you. The pressure's been building up in me. I'm happy to talk."

Later that day, a bunch of us from the Hootsmon were stationed at various points around the city and beyond. It was in the days when the paper was going through a tabloidy phase (before it went that shape), I think under the redoubtable Martin Clarke. I had to stand outside a social work office in, I think, Nicolson Square.

The trendy liberals inside weren't best pleased. Bizarrely, when I tried to pretend I'd gone away, and stood somewhere off, there was a bloke came out that looked a wee bit like him. I thought it couldn't be, but then again he was a master of disguise, and that social workie anorak looked awfully cliched. I had also to consider that, if I were to let him slip through the net, Martin would punch me very hard in the face when I got back to the office.

So, I decided there was nothing to lose – if it wasn't him, it wasn't him – and, anyway, I was bored off my tits. So I ran after this bloke, shouting: "Mr Cronin! Mr Cronin!" The individual, a real social worker as it turned out, felt somewhat inclined to question my parentage, and acted on that inclination.

Back at Haddington Sheriff Court, I sat next to Louise Batchelor in the press box. She couldn't have been an environment corr then, unless she was after the lesser spotted pervert. The bugger was certainly difficult to spot at times."



Rab McNeil