A top Scottish lawyer has been fined after sending "foolish" tweets in that threatened a transgender councillor with gang violence.
Mike Dailly, of Govan Law Centre, was censured after sharing a series of menacing online posts understood to be about former Dundee SNP councillor Gregor Murray in June 2021. Dailly, who campaigns on issues such as women's rights, debt and homelessness, sparked a row with Murray after the politician criticised his stance on transgender issues.
The lawyer suggested in a tweet, said to be aimed at Murray, that he had gangland contacts in the area of Dundee, which the politician represented at the time.
Dailly wrote: "I’m a Dundonian. 34 years in Glasgow but I was a schemie in Whitfield in Dundee. Every gang member that ever was in the East End of Dundee was my pal. Not sure it is wise to attack me, ken. Just saying.”
In another tweet, Dailly added that his "pals from the Bar L [Barlinnie prison]" would "meet" another social media user who also hit out at his views. While the tweets did not mention Murray by name, a Law Society probe concluded that the remarks had been directed at the councillor and were beneath the standards expected of a solicitor.
A row between the pair broke out after Dailly objected to the use of the word "cis" – meaning someone who is not transgender – in a post shared by the housing charity Shelter to mark Pride Month. Dailly had said: "I find it troubling to describe women as 'cis'. They are women. They fought generations for women’s rights not 'cis' rights."
Murray, who was at the time Scotland's only openly transgender councillor, complained to Govan Law Centre about Dailly's post, calling it "atrocious".
Weeks later, Dailly made the veiled threats for which he has been sanctioned in another Twitter conversation about women's rights, referring to "the folk that tried to get me sacked for expressing lawful gender critical views". This prompted Murray to complain to the Law Society for Scotland.
The watchdog's probe concluded that people would not "seriously believe that the solicitor intended to invite criminals to cause the complainer [Murray] physical harm". However, investigators noted: "The tweets libelled in these issues did have a real potential to damage the reputation of the profession and that any solicitor demonstrating simple common sense should have known better than to make them."
Fining Dailly £200 and ordering him to pay £150 to Murray, the Law Society's professional conduct sub-committee ruled: "Whilst the conduct was foolish, the terms of the tweets did not amount to an actual serious threat and fell well short of amounting to professional misconduct." The committee took no further action over Dailly's tweet about Shelter or two other messages he posted on social media around the time of the offending tweets.
Gregor Murray served as a councillor in Dundee from 2012 until 2022. They were a member of the SNP group until May 2019, when they resigned from the party over what they called its "major institutional problem with transphobia". A Standards Commission probe cleared Murray of misconduct over their tweets regarding Dailly last summer.
Murray declined to comment on the Law Society probe. Dailly was contacted for comment.
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