The BBC’s Reporting Scotland is, in our view, directly responsible for at least 80% of Yes supporters’ belief that the UK’s state broadcaster is biased against independence. Almost all of the worst examples of unbalanced or downright dishonest coverage over the last five years come from the flagship teatime bulletin.

But last night’s edition made even the most wearily cynical jaws drop.

Let’s just take that in for a moment.

Of course, those two bits of video aren’t related. The footage of Thomson – which is taken, in a particularly tasteful twist, from a House Of Commons session where she revealed she’d been raped as a child – has been juxtaposed with a piece from a totally different story about sentencing.

The effect is, well, let’s be generous for the moment and say “unfortunate”. And on any other show it could have been written off as simply a thoughtless and stupid accident. Except that the BBC has clearly taken the dropping of any investigation into Thomson very personally.

Yesterday we noted some shockingly inaccurate initial reporting of the fact that a police investigation into potential mortgage irregularities had decided not to take any action of any kind against the former Edinburgh MP.

Thomson was never charged, arrested or even questioned as a suspect, yet the BBC and others all headlined the story “FRAUD CASE AGAINST THOMSON DROPPED”, even though in fact no fraud case had ever been brought against her.

After complaints, most outlets changed their offending headlines.

And the BBC’s own correspondent Nick Eardley even issued a correction:

But despite that, as we write this 18 hours from the initial publication, this is incredibly still the headline and opening paragraph on the BBC website’s report on the story:

When the story originally broke in the autumn of 2015, the BBC committed heavily to the assumption of Thomson’s guilt.

The near-three-minute piece above was broadcast on the news channel. It features footage of Kezia Dugdale making a disgracefully dishonest misrepresentation of old comments by Thomson, paired with some people who’d sold their house happily to her years earlier suddenly deciding retrospectively that she’d in some way ripped them off.

And Reporting Scotland pulled much the same trick in another lengthy clip, linking their claims spuriously with the criminal investigation (into someone else altogether) and soaking the entire report in baseless innuendo.

None of that is an accident of editing. The BBC stitched Thomson up like a kipper, repeatedly and at length, with news items that would have left viewers in no doubt that she was guilty – of something – without ever directly saying so. So her complete innocence, as determined after extensive and detailed consideration by the police and Procurator Fiscal, was undoubtedly an embarrassment to the corporation.

Last night’s edition reported the outcome through grudging, gritted teeth. In barely two minutes – much less time than it devoted to any of the pieces implying her guilt – the show dripped innuendo, suspicion and misinformation over the decision as presenter Jackie Bird sat back with folded arms and a sceptical expression:

Let’s just review that. All capitals in these quotes are our emphasis.

“She’d been the SUBJECT of a police investigation”

That’s stretching the meaning of words to breaking point. Thomson’s name had been included in the report as someone who’d given a voluntary interview as a witness in the possible prosecution of someone else, and who others had suggested might be involved somehow, but who was in the event never even questioned.

“There will be no criminal charges FOR NOW”

This, of course, is true of ANY criminal investigation, or even a full-blown trial. At any point any case can be revisited, since the creation in 2011 of a new double-jeopardy rule. So pointing it out is redundant – the only purpose of actually using the words “for now”, while technically correct, is to suggest some sort of doubt.

(It’s a bit like reporting the result of every football match as, say, “Manchester United 2 Liverpool 1… for now”, on the grounds that it’s always POSSIBLE that there could later be an investigation that might overturn the score, eg due to bribery or someone fielding an ineligible player, even though there’s no reason to believe there will be.)

“Michelle Thomson THINKS she’s been completely exonerated”

She thinks that because it’s what’s happened. Despite a major two-year investigation into all the events around the mortgages, accompanied by a full-on barrage of media coverage digging into all the transactions at endless length, it’s been concluded that there weren’t even any grounds to question her, let alone arrest her or charge her. It’s hard to think of how much more exonerated a person could be. Michelle Thomson is, in every possible sense that exists in the law of the land, an innocent woman.

But having gone to so much effort to build an elaborate scaffold for the hanging, it’s no surprise that the BBC – like the rest of the Scottish media – is bitterly disappointed that she’s turned out not to be guilty of any wrongdoing. And it’s in that context that viewers may wish to place last night’s “accident” of juxtaposition.