Get the stories that matter to you sent straight to your inbox with our daily newsletter. Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Today we publish online a video the Scottish Prison Service did not want you to see.

Please view it and refuse to be blinded to the truth.

You should be utterly appalled at the sight of remand prisoner Allan Marshall being “ restrained ” by a pack of guards while his life ebbs.

It is one thing to read in print that a prison officer “stamped” on Allan, 30, as he was pinned to the ground but it is another to see the officer’s foot go down.

Perhaps you could imagine a guard kneeling on Allan as he is prostrate and face down but to witness it is to physically recoil.

There is no sound but witnesses described Allan’s screams – how he begged for breath – and now we can see why.

There are glimpses of his limp, naked body as he is dragged by a multitude of officers and he appears more like an animal carcass than a human being.

When the Fatal Accident Inquiry into his death reported, I absorbed every detail of its 109 pages.

I felt in my gut, deep outrage at the prison officers’ lies and the systematic failures to stop what the sheriff called “an entirely preventable” death.

When the story was published in the Daily Record, I expected an outcry, a political storm, but apart from isolated pockets of criticism, there was silence.

(Image: Sunday Mail)

Our sister paper the Sunday Mail, carried an interview with Allan’s family, told the story of the man, not the prisoner.

Still, this scandal did not evoke the anger it merited.

Perhaps people didn’t care because Allan was a prisoner but he was on remand – an innocent man in the eyes of the law. He was innocent and not high on drugs and still no shock and fury.

And really it should not matter because a life is still a precious life.

We sit in this little country of ours, smug and self-assured we are a society, which aspires to do the decent thing.

As an independence supporter, I have held our government, our ethics in esteem. Our First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and our Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf have always appeared fundamentally good people.

But they have been mute over Allan’s death and that is shameful.

Cut Scotland loose from the callous Tory Government and our innate sense of justice and humanity will navigate us to a better future. That’s what I used to think – but not today.

Our Government, our prison service, with thousands of pounds of our money, tried to exploit the law to censor the truth.

The Scottish Prison Service has failed in its legal bid to stop the publication of this video and it would have been a disgrace if they had succeeded.

That they tried is wrong in a democratic Scotland.

(Image: Jamie Williamson)

The story of Allan’s death following restraint is one of attempted censorship, lying public servants, immunity from prosecution and the inaction and apathy of government.

Cover-up and dishonesty, supplant Scotland with former apartheid South Africa, Turkey or Russia and our sanctimony would be palpable.

It beggars belief that there was no criminal investigation of note and it took four years to have the details of this prison death aired in an FAI.

An FAI can’t even compel witnesses to attend such as the many more staff who were in the CCTV but didn’t give evidence.

The FAI was supposed to get to the truth but it can’t apportion fault so no one is held to any meaningful account when crucial evidence emerges.

An FAI is, in reality, a sop.

It was only when the Sunday Mail obtained the CCTV that it became public – a prison-issue towel was placed at Allan’s face.

Restraint specialist Eric Baskind said: “Using anything like this in a makeshift capacity increases the chances of asphyxiation.”

Yet nowhere in the sheriff’s findings is there mention of a towel – a disturbing detail that it should not have taken the Press to out.

The FAI established that proper restraint procedures weren’t followed, that the protocol to alert medical staff when Allan was delusional was not adhered to.

So will there now be a health and safety investigation and potentially prosecution? I doubt it.

Officers perjured themselves under oath at the FAI but, as far as we’re aware, none have even faced disciplinary action.

We should ask why the SPS tried to stop the publication of this video.

They said they wanted to protect the privacy of the officers but their faces are pixilated although they are named in the FAI.

(Image: Collect)

Prison officer Brian Fraser admitted he had “stamped on” Allan and it had been “out of order”.

Fraser lied when he said Allan had been “lifted” out of the shower when the CCTV shows him being dragged along the floor.

What consequences has he faced? As far as we are aware, none.

The consequences of this sorry mess are felt by Allan’s family and by us, because injustices like this chip away at the core of the country we purport to be.

If we’re not angry, if we’re not calling for better, the Scotland I thought we were took its last breath with Allan.

If we don’t expect more today then we shouldn’t be surprised when the Scotland of tomorrow delivers so much less.